## Facts

- Downstream landowners and irrigation companies owned and farmed land bordering the Santa Ana River and had long used the river to irrigate it.
- Their irrigation needs required a continuous flow of about 400 miner’s inches during the irrigation season.
- Upstream landowners built a dam and diverted river water into a ditch to irrigate other parcels they owned.
- The diverted water was applied to lands the trial court found were not riparian to the Santa Ana River.
- Defendants argued the downstream plaintiffs were not riparian owners because their lands lay within the river’s “bed,” pointing to the broad river bottom, occasional flood movement of the channel, and subsurface flow.
- Evidence showed plaintiffs’ lands were cultivable, had been successfully farmed and irrigated for many years, and abutted the river; the river’s channel had not substantially changed for decades.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs’ lands bordering the Santa Ana River were riparian despite being on a wide river bottom subject to occasional flooding and subsurface flow.
2. Whether defendants could lawfully divert Santa Ana River water for irrigation on nonriparian lands when the diversion interfered with downstream riparian uses.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment and the order denying a new trial.
- The Court upheld the injunction restraining defendants from diverting Santa Ana River water for use on nonriparian lands to plaintiffs’ injury.
- The Court rejected the claim that plaintiffs’ bordering, cultivable farmland constituted the riverbed and thus lacked riparian status.
- The Court accepted the trial court’s finding that the lands receiving defendants’ diverted water were nonriparian.

## Legal Principles

- Riparian rights attach to land physically contiguous to a natural watercourse; bordering land used as ordinary farmland is not stripped of riparian status merely because it lies on a broad bottom that may be flooded or is associated with subsurface flow.
- An upstream proprietor may not divert water for use on nonriparian land in a manner that impairs downstream riparian owners’ reasonable requirements, absent a legally sufficient basis such as a prescriptive right.
- Riparian status is determined by contiguity to the stream rather than by broad watershed concepts, historical unity of ownership, or conveyancing intended to create an apparent connection.

## Conclusion

The court treated plaintiffs’ bordering, cultivable lands as riparian and held that defendants’ upstream diversion for irrigation on nonriparian parcels could be enjoined because it interfered with established downstream riparian uses and reasonable seasonal water needs.


Anaheim Union Water Co. v. Fuller, 150 Cal. 327, 88 P. 978 (Cal. 1907)