Sutter Butte Canal Co. v. Superior Court of Butte County

This is an application for a writ of prohibition. The petitioner is a public utility corporation engaged in the business of selling and distributing water largely, if not entirely, for irrigation. By its articles of incorporation it was authorized to engage in this business in the counties of Butte and Sutter. Prior to the present year there were some fifty-eight thousand acres of land, mostly, if not all,' in Butte County, to which water was furnished by it. In the fall of last year, the Railroad Commission authorized the company to obligate itself to supply some fourteen thousand four hundred acres more of land, all in Sutter County. Pursuant to such authority, the petitioner did so obligate itself by contract with the owners of these lands, and has extended its work so as to supply them at a cost which the commission finds to have been between two hundred thousand dollars and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. No objection to this was made at the time by the old consumers of the Water Company, but it may be that they were unaware of the application for authority, although notice of the application was published in the newspapers circulating in Butte County, and the…

I dissent, being of the opinion that it is apparent from the face of the complaints in the superior court actions that, in view of sections 5 and 6 of the act of April 25, 1913 (Stats. 1913, p. 84; Deering’s General Laws, Act 4348a), the subject matter of such actions is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Railroad Commission, subject, only, in so far as the courts of this state are concerned, to review by this court, as provided by the Public Utilities Act.

Rehearing denied.

All the Justices concurred, except Sloane, J., who was absent.