State of California v. Hansen

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the State of California, in an action for ejectment and injunction. The question involved concerns the right of an individual to go upon state-owned land and, without express consent to do so, develop water thereon, construct a pipeline across such land and, by means of such pipeline, appropriate the water so developed to a use upon his own land.

Some time in mid-1956 the defendant discovered a spring in a ravine on a section of state-owned land in the desert area of Kern County. The terrain in this area is hilly and rugged. Water…