UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

1. The ninth section of the Act of Congress of July 26, 1866, "granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners over the public lands, and for other purposes," enacted

"That whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same, and the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes aforesaid is hereby acknowledged and confirmed, provided however that whenever, after the passage of this act, any person or persons shall, in the construction of any ditch or canal, injure or damage the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage."

Held: 1. that this section only confirmed to the owners of water rights and of ditches and canals on the public lands of the United States the same rights which they held under the local customs, laws, and decisions of the courts, prior to its passage; 2. that the proviso conferred no additional rights upon the owners of ditches subsequently constructed, but simply rendered them liable to parties on the public domain whose possessions might be injured by such construction.

2. The origin and general character of the customary law of miners stated and explained.

3. By that law, the owner of a mining claim and the owner of a water right in California hold their respective properties from the dates of their appropriation, the first in time being the first in right; but where both rights can be enjoyed without interference with or material impairment of each other, the enjoyment of both is allowed.

4. By that law, a person cannot construct a ditch to convey water across the mining claim of another, taken up and worked according to that law before the right of way was acquired by the ditch owner, so as to prevent the further working of the claim in the usual manner in which such claims are worked, nor so as to cut off the use of water previously appropriated by the miner for working the claim, or for other beneficial purposes.

5. Accordingly, where the owner of a mining claim worked by the method known as "the hydraulic process," cut and washed away a portion of a ditch so as to let out the water flowing in it, the ditch having been so constructed clubjuris

Page 98 U. S. 454

across the claim previously acquired as to prevent it from being further worked by that method, and to prevent the use of water previously appropriated by him -- held that the cutting and washing away of the ditch, it having been done in order that the claim might be worked and the water used as before, was not an injury for which damages could be recovered.

The facts are stated in tire opinion of the Court.