Pacific Gas And Electric Co. v. Scott

SHENK, J. The plaintiff, a public utility corporation, owns certain parcels of real property in Nevada and Placer Counties which are riparian to Bear River. For approximately ten years prior to the commencement of the action it has maintained a system of canals, power houses and regulating reservoirs through which, under its riparian and appropriative rights, waters from Bear River are diverted and used in the generation of electric energy sold by the plaintiff to the public. The waters of the river are also sold to several small communities, to the Nevada Irrigation District, and to the cities of Roseville and Lincoln for irrigation and domestic uses. The defendants within three years of the filing of the action commenced hydraulic placer mining operations above the points of diversion of water by the plaintiff. Their operations washed down tailings and detritus through the channel of the river and into the diversion and distributing system of the plaintiff, with the result that quantities of earth, sand gravel, "slickens", filth, debris, collodial matter and foreign substances were discharged into the reservoirs, canals, and power generating apparatus and caused serious damage thereto. The action was brought against several defendants who operated various mining properties above the lands of the plaintiff. The court found damage to the plaintiffs property in excess of $232,655.54, but that the plaintiff had remitted the excess. It also found the proportions of that amount contributed by the several defendants and entered its judgment accordingly, viz.: against You Bet Mining Company and J. W. Scott for $126,928.57; Liberty Hill Gold Mines, Ltd., and M. A. Grizzle for $16,880.40; R. P. M. Davis, Liberty Hill Gold Mines, Ltd., and M. A. Grizzle for $83,970.57; D. B. Fuller, for $646, and Remington Hill Placers, Inc., Ltd., Frank A. Crampton and others, for $4,240. Injunctive relief was also granted. The defendants You Bet Mining Company and J. W. Scott only have appealed from the judgment.