Woo v. Martz

MOORE, P. J.

This action was instituted to enforce an asserted easement for the discharge of storm waters over appellants’ lands adjacent to the tract held under lease by respondents and for damages to the latter resulting from loss of crops that perished under the waters diverted by appellants from their established course.

In 1942 respondents Woo leased from one Raymond Hails about 51 acres of agricultural lands in the Dominguez Colony Tract in Los Angeles County. The lands were promptly planted to garden truck which by January, 1943, attained commercial maturity with a value of $6,100. The following season a new crop was planted which likewise became of marketable age in January, 1944, with a value of $1,800. Both crops were destroyed by the surface waters so diverted by appellants. This action demanded judgment for the total loss and for an injunction requiring appellants to remove the embankment which diverted the flood waters from the easement and caused them to be impounded on respondents’ lands. Relief was denied by the trial court. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment because of the failure of the trial court to make a finding on the issue of a possible prescriptive right in plaintiffs to channel surface waters onto defendants’ lands.

(Woo

v.

Martz,

28 Cal.2d 866 [172 P.2d 54].) A second trial resulted favorable to Woo in the finding that plaintiffs were holders of a prescriptive easement and in judgment quieting title to the easement and for the value of the destroyed crops.

As ground for reversal, appellants now urge the insufficiency of the evidence to support the finding (1) of such prescriptive easement, (2) that Martz caused the destruction of respondents’ crops, (3) that the use of appellants’ lands by respondents was hostile and adverse.

The details with reference to the titles, leases, tenants, dikes and ditches, drainage, neighboring lands etc. are meticulously set forth in an opinion by Mr. Justice Parker Wood in

Hails

[561]

v.