Mitchell v. City of Santa Barbara

McCOMB, J.

From a judgment in favor of plaintiffs after trial before the court without a jury in an action to recover damages for injury to real property from the diversion of waters from a natural stream, defendant city of Santa Barbara appeals.

The evidence being viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff (respondent), the essential facts are:

Plaintiffs are the owners of a store building and furniture business located on the comer of Milpas and East Ortega

[570]

Streets in the city of Santa Barbara. Since man’s memory runneth not to the contrary there has existed within the corporate city a series of foothills and mountains rising from the level land immediately north of Milpas Street and running in an easterly and westerly direction. These foothills and mountains are broken by a series of natural canyons and streams descending down the slopes of the foothills and from a watershed adjacent to and east of Milpas Street in defendant city and to some extent adjacent to and immediately north of what is known as Canon Perdido Street. These natural creeks, canyons and ravines, after leaving the watershed and foothills became tributary to a major natural water course or' channel extending in a general north and south direction from a point on the north at approximately the intersection of Canon Perdido and Milpas Streets and to the south to a major basin extending over an area of about a quarter of a mile in diameter along the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

In the period of seasonal storms the waters from the watershed flow down from the creeks, canyons, and ravines into the natural water course and then into the basin, thereafter escaping into the Pacific Ocean. Prior to the alteration of this natural water course the seasonal waters had been carried into the basin and thence to the Pacific Ocean at a point which is now the southerly termination of Santa Barbara Street.

Defendant city, prior to the spring of 1938, raised the grade of certain streets that traversed the natural water course above described, thereby creating a series of dams, and also caused to be filled with rubbish and other debris a large portion of the land that formerly constituted the water basin above described.

Plaintiffs’ premises are located to the northeast and contiguous to the natural water course heretofore mentioned. Due to the artificial changes in the natural water courses which defendant city had effected, storm waters in the early morning of March 2,1938, accumulated upon the upper levels of the above described drainage area and large quantities of rain water, not being able to escape through the obstructed natural water course, inundated plaintiffs’ property.