Facts
- Left Hand Ditch Company owned and operated a ditch and diversion dam taking water from the south fork of St. Vrain Creek, conveying it through James Creek into Left Hand Creek for irrigation of lands along Left Hand Creek.
- Coffin and other defendants owned lands along St. Vrain Creek downstream from the diversion point and claimed their lands were naturally irrigated from the stream.
- In 1879, stream flow was insufficient to satisfy both the company’s ditch diversion and defendants’ irrigation demands.
- Defendants tore out part of the company’s dam, materially interfering with the diversion.
- The company sued for trespass damages and injunctive relief.
- Defendants asserted a general denial, an alleged agreement limiting diversion in low-water conditions, and individual defenses premised on riparian ownership and claimed appropriations.
- The trial court sustained demurrers to all defenses except the general denial, largely because defendants did not adequately allege appropriations senior to the company’s diversion.
- A jury returned a verdict for the company; judgment awarded damages for injury to the dam (not for loss of water).
- Defendants appealed.
Issues
- Whether Colorado water law is governed by common-law riparian rights or by prior appropriation based on priority of beneficial use.
- Whether downstream landowners could justify forcibly destroying a diversion dam as self-help based on asserted water rights or an alleged diversion-limiting agreement.
- Whether defenses asserting appropriative rights were legally sufficient absent allegations that such appropriations predated the plaintiff’s diversion.
Decision
- The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for the Left Hand Ditch Company.
- The court held that prior appropriation, not riparian proprietorship, governs water rights in Colorado and had done so since the earliest appropriations, not merely since the 1876 Constitution.
- The court concluded the verdict and judgment were supported by the pleadings and evidence.
- The court held defendants’ destruction of the dam was wrongful; even if an agreement limiting diversion existed, it would not excuse forcible destruction without notice or legal process.
- The affirmed recovery was limited to damages for injury to the dam.
Legal Principles
- In Colorado, the right to use surface water is determined by priority of appropriation for beneficial use rather than by riparian landownership.
- An appropriative right is a protected property-like, usufructuary interest, recognized as necessary for irrigation in an arid region and supported by long-standing practice and governmental policy.
- Appropriative rights can be protected against later-acquired interests in land and are not defeated because the appropriator conveyed water across a watershed divide to irrigate lands in another drainage.
- A party claiming an appropriative right as a defense must plead facts showing priority over the opposing appropriation; conclusory or non-prior allegations are insufficient.
- Even if a party believes another’s diversion is wrongful, self-help destruction of diversion works is not justified where legal remedies are available.
Conclusion
The court confirmed prior appropriation as Colorado’s governing doctrine for surface-water rights, treated senior appropriations as protectable property interests, and affirmed damages against downstream landowners who unlawfully destroyed a diversion dam rather than pursuing lawful remedies.