Snodgrass v. Crane

PEEK, J.

From a judgment quieting plaintiffs’ title to certain real property the defendant John Caires appeals. The plaintiffs’ complaint is in the usual form of a suit to quiet title alleging that plaintiffs are the owners and in possession of certain ranch lands described therein.- Defendant Caires answered denying the ownership of and possession by plaintiffs, particularly in regard to certain springs and the right to use water therefrom. The defendant Crane failed to answer the complaint, and his default was duly entered.

The record discloses that both of the defendants, Caires and Crane, received their respective deeds from a common grantor, one Sarah Anne Heckman Hansen. The question of

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priority as between these two deeds is of importance to a proper determination of this appeal, and although the record is vague as "regards the date of the Crane deed we are constrained to resolve that point in accordance with the implied finding of the trial court, that as between the two, the Caires deed, dated February 28, 1932, and recorded March 3, 1932, in the office of the County Recorder of Humboldt County, was first in point of time.

The Caires deed conveyed a small parcel of land immediately adjacent to the Crane property but some distance removed from the Snodgrass property, together with the “right to take and use water for household purposes, in common with all other persons who now have or may hereafter acquire the right to take or use water from water springs upon the lands of the grantor, and the right to enter upon said lands and lay water pipes for conducting water to the land herein described.”

It should be noted first, that the easement created by the grant was general and not specific, in that no particular spring was specified, nor did the grant in any way define the right so conveyed. The only specific reservation of described springs is found in the deed from the successors in interest of plaintiffs’ grantor dated July 2, 1934. The record also discloses that appellant has taken water continually since 1932, the date of his deed, from a spring located on the premises now owned by defendant Crane. The water from this spring was apparently ample for appellant’s “household use,” for at no time did appellant go on plaintiffs’ land for the purpose of obtaining water nor has the appellant so contended. Nowhere in the record do we find that there was a deficiency of water from said spring or that appellant needed more water than said spring supplied.