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Show 248 PROTECTION OF WATER RIGHTS IN WATERCOURSES appropriative right and the power of eminent domain. Plaintiff asked for damages and for an injunction against threatened additional encroachment on his riparian rights. The district stipulated that it would never impound or divert water from the river at any time unless there was then a flow of at least 18 cubic feet per second at plaintiffs riparian lands. This, then, was not a complete divestiture of plaintiffs riparian right; it was "a partial taking, with a relinquishment to the stream of a portion of the right seized."268 Under the court's ruling the action became in effect a cross-action to determine damages as if in eminent domain proceedings. In an eminent domain proceeding a stipulation of this character would be proper. On that theory, the California Supreme Court approved the method of settlement. (3) In earlier California cases the doctrine of reverse or inverse condemna- tion was stated to be: Where a person has suffered his property to be taken and devoted to a public use by an administrator thereof, and the matter has proceeded so far that the beneficiaries of the public use rely on its continuance and adjust their affairs accordingly-the owner having knowledge and making no objection-his conduct will be regarded by the courts as a dedication by him of the property to the particular public use. The owner cannot thereafter interrupt or prevent the public use. His only remedy is to seek compensation for the taking,269 or an injunction against further damage only in the event that the proper compensation is not made.270 (4) In its first major interpretation of the constitutional amendment of 1928, the California Supreme Court stated that "it was established by decisions of this court long prior to the trial that when public interests had intervened through the construction and operation of public agencies before the actions were commenced, any right of the parties to disturb them in their possession of the property was thereby lost, and only an action to recover compensation for the land taken could be available."271 (5) In a 1938 case involving groundwater supplies of the City of Los Angeles the court stated that assuming the city in the first instance should have brought condemnation proceedings or purchased the water rights of respon- dents, nevertheless the opportunity was still available to accomplish that result by the process of reverse condemnation. And it was said and held: ;*8 213 Cal. at 566. "'Miller & Lux v. Enterprise Canal & Land Co., 169 Cal. 415, 429-430, 147 Pac. 567 (1915). 270Newport v. Temescal Water Co., 149 Cal. 531, 538-539, 87 Pac. 372 (1906). 2nPeabody v. Vattejo, 2 Cal. (2d) 351, 377-378, 40 Pac. (2d) 486 (1935). See Martin v. Western States Gas & Elec. Co., 8 Cal. App. (2d) 226, 229, 47 Pac. (2d) 522 (1935), hearing denied by supreme court (1935); Provident In. Dist. v. Cecil, 126 Cal. App. (2d) 13, 18, 271 Pac. (2d) 157, 160 (1954). See also /. M. Howell Co. v. Corning In. Co., Ill Cal. 513, 518-519, 171 Pac. 100 (1918). See also the Washington case of Longmire v. Yakima Highlands In. & Land Co., 95 Wash. 302, 307, 163 Pac. 782 (1917). |