The English common law interpretation of reasonable household purposes meant domestic uses and small scale subsistence farming.

Based on their land ownership, Miller and Lux claimed riparian rights to the natural flow of the river.

[3] Realizing that the Central Valley area was prone to drought, they developed an extensive canal system to irrigate their lands from the slough.

By 1877 upstream water appropriation by the Kern County Land and Canal Company had dried out Buena Vista Slough completely.

Haggin was a wealthy socialite, lawyer, and business man who arrived in California during the gold rush.

By 1877, Haggin had diverted so much water from the Kern River that it no longer flowed to Buena Vista Slough.

[4] On November 3, 1881 Judge Brundage ruled that "no continuous or defined channel" existed in Buena Vista swamp, and therefore Miller and Lux were not considered riparian land owners.

[3] Judge Brundage also included in his opinion that irrigation by means of appropriation was a "natural necessity" in the state of California.

A rehearing by the California Supreme Court in 1886 addressed the question: "Can a private corporation divert the waters of a watercourse, and thereby deprive the riparian proprieters of all use of the same, without just compensation?

The ruling "created chaos by shackling the state with two fundamentally incompatible water allocation systems.

The court decided that water could be used for commercial and agricultural purposes as long as the use did not negatively affect other riparian landowners.