Sutro Heights Land Co. v. Merced Irrigation District

The complaint in this action asks for an injunction against the defendant prohibiting it from permitting water to flow or seep through its canals upon plaintiffs’ lands; for the abatement thereof as a nuisance, and for damages alleged to have been already sustained by reason of seepage of water upon plaintiffs’ said lands. By a separate cause of action plaintiffs also ask that defendant be compelled to install a drainage system for the purpose of relieving plaintiffs’ lands from the water which the plaintiffs allege has been caused to flow thereon through seepage from the canals of the defendant.

Plaintiffs allege in their complaint that they are the owners in severalty of three tracts of land, being parts of a tract of land formerly owned by Louis Titus and commonly known as the Titus ranch, all of which last-named tract, except the southwest quarter of section 18, township 7 south, range 11 east, M. D. B. & M., lies within and is a part of the Merced Irrigation District. The lands of the plaintiffs are practically contiguous and are in the extreme southwest portion of the district and comprise 2,500 acres or thereabouts.

The defendant is an irrigation district organized under…