Black Hills Power & Light Company v. Schuft

JONES, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff herein seeks a declaratory judgment pursuant to SDCL 21-24 to determine the rights and obligations of the parties hereto.

The factual background of the case is as follows. Commencing in the spring of 1878 and continuing until 1903, one David M. Dorsett farmed in Lawrence and 'Butte Counties, and irrigated his farm with water from the Redwater River which forms the boundary between Lawrence and Butte Counties and meanders through the Dorsett farm. The defendants herein now own the Dorsett farm. Dorsett and his neighbors to the west had a small irrigation canal…