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Show 64 THE RIPARIAN DOCTRINE circumstances of this case, with the city making a noninterfering use of the water, there was perhaps no occasion for that question to arise.323 Public and Private Organizations In the early riparian cases, rights of individuals were usually involved, but as time went on, both unincorporated companies and corporations appeared as owners of land for which riparian rights were claimed. No case has come to the author's attention in which the right of a corporation to exercise riparian proprietorship was held to differ from that of an individual, provided that the acquisition of title to land was consonant with its corporate powers. Inclusion of both unincorporated and incorporated companies within the concept of riparian proprietorship seems to have been taken for granted. The same observation applies to public water districts authorized by their enabling legislation to acquire and hold title to land. Relations between water organizations and owners of riparian land are discussed later under "Exercise of the Riparian Right-Relations Between Organization and Riparian Proprie- tors." Individual "Legally defined, a riparian owner is an owner of land bounded by a water course or lake or through which a stream flows."324 Most of the controversies over claims of riparian rights have involved individuals. The fact that riparian proprietorship, individual or otherwise, contemplates ownership of land contiguous to the stream or other source has been stated by many courts. (See the previous discussion, "Riparian Lands- Contiguity to Water Source.") Trespasser.-In an early case, the California Supreme Court held that a trespasser on private land, who uses thereon water to which the land is entitled by reason of its riparian right, does not acquire "such a right in the water as that he may thereafter divert it from the land, or upon being evicted therefrom, convey to a stranger a legal title in the water or in the use thereof." Where such trespassers are evicted from the riparian land before they perfect title by adverse possession, nothing is taken from the rights of the rightful owners by reason of the trespassers' unlawful acts.325 Although a trespasser on public lands is for some purposes deemed to be the owner, one who asserts riparian rights as against an upper appropriator of water must show some right, inchoate or otherwise, to the land.326 ™Fairbury v. Fairbwy Mill & Elevator Co., 123 Nebr. 588, 592-593, 243 N.W. 774 (1932). 3MSayles v. Mitchell, 60 S. Dak. 592, 594, 245 N.W. 390 (1932). *25Alta Land & Water Co. v. Hancock, 85 Cal. 219, 228-229, 24 Pac. 645 (1890). 326 Silver Creek & Panoche Land & Water Co. v. Hayes, 113 Cal. 142, 145, 45 Pac. 191 (1896). |