City of Gold Hill, Or. v. California Oregon Power Co.

In the court below appellee and appellants were respectively plaintiff and defendants, and we shall so refer to them here. Plaintiff is a public service corporation engaged at many points in generating electric current for public use, and it and its predecessors in interest long have held title to certain lands on the easterly hank of the Rogue river near Gold Hill, Or. The defendant City of Gold Hill holds, and for a long period it and its predecessors in interest have held, title to lands opposite to this tract on the westerly bank of the river. Under the laws of the state a riparian owner takes title to the bed of the river, and admittedly here the common boundary line between the two tracts is the thread of the stream. Upon its tract the defendant city maintains, and from about the year 1882 it and its predecessors have maintained, a small hydroelectric plant by which a part of the water of the river is utilized for generating current for the use of itself and its inhabitants. In October, 1926, and prior to the commencement of this action, it entered into a contract with its eodefendant, the Beaver Portland Cement Company, a large user of electric current, under the terms of…