Statement by Mr. Chief Justice Fuller: Complainants below, appellants here, are 244 in number, and own in severalty various tracts of land aggregating several thousand acres, located in the county of Los Angeles, California, in ranchos San Rafael, Los Felis, and Providencia. The rancho San Rafael was granted by the King of Spain, and the other two ranchos by the Republic of Mexico, to the predecessors of complainants. The titles were confirmed, pursuant to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo [9 Stat. at L. 922], to the successors of the original grantees by the board of land commissioners created by and acting under an act of Congress approved March 3, 1851, entitled, 'An Act to Ascertain and Settle Private Land Claims in the State of California.' [9 Stat. at L. 631, chap. 41.] Patents were thereupon issued by the United States to the confirmees, and it was alleged that these grants conveyed the title to the waters within them.
It was further alleged that the city of Los Angeles claimed to be the successor in right and title to all the grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments to the Pueblo de Los Angeles, and the city filed a claim before the land commissioners in virtue of the general laws of Spain to 16 square leagues of land, alleging that the said lands had been granted to the pueblo, which board confirmed the title of the city to four square leagues of land, but rejected its claim to the remaining 12 square leagues, and that a patent was issued to the city by the United States for the land so confirmed, which patent did not refer to the river or its tributary waters, and did not purport to convey any of the waters of said river. That the city claimed the paramount right to the waters of the Los Angeles river and the river itself in virtue of the grants, laws, usages, and customs of the Republic of Mexico and of the Kingdom of Spain, made and in vogue prior to the cession of the territory embraced within the state of California to the United States under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and by virtue of certain acts of the legislature of the state of California, referred to in the bill, and especially by virtue of an act of the legislature of California, passed April 4, 1850, incorporating the city of Los Angeles, and declaring that it 'shall succeed to all the rights, claims, and powers of the Pueblo de Los Angeles in regard to property, and shall be subject to all the liabilities incurred, and obligations created, by the ayuntamiento of said pueblo.
It was further alleged that the city never procured the confirmation of any rights in the waters of the Los Angeles river other than those that passed under the grant of land conferred by the patent, and that the act of the legislature, passed April 4, 1850, and certain other acts of the legislature, and proceedings, acts, and charters of the city, set forth in the bill, are a cloud upon complainants' title to their lands. That the Los Angeles river runs through the three ranchos and thence through the city; that complainants' lands are riparian to the stream; that underlying complainants' lands are percolating waters which do not constitute a part of the river, but which, by reason of the patents referred to and mesne conveyances, belong to the several complainants as owners of said lands. The bill then went on to aver that the city claims that it is the owner of the river and its tributaries and their waters, passing through the ranchos named, and of the percolating waters in complainants' lands; that it claims the right to appropriate said waters for the use of the city and its inhabitants, and that complainants have no right to take any of the surface waters of the river or the percolating waters except in subordination to the city's paramount right to take and use the same, and the city threatens and intends to institute suit in the state courts of California to enjoin complainants from using any of the waters possessed by them from wells on their lands.
That the city rests its right and claim to the river and its waters upon a certain construction of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and of the act of Congress of March 3, 1851, and upon certain acts of the California legislature and certain charters of the city of Los Angeles, adopted and approved in pursuance of an erroneous construction of the treaty and the act of Congress; the acts and charters being enumerated.