Crews v. Johnson

SALSMAN, J.

The defendants appeal from a judgment permanently enjoining them from constructing or maintaining any pier or piling easterly of the low water line of Clear Lake as that line is described in the decree. At the commencement of the action plaintiffs sought and after a hearing obtained a mandatory preliminary injunction by the terms of which defendants were required to remove piling and a pier extending from defendants’ property easterly into Clear Lake. The defendants complied with the terms of the mandatory preliminary injunction and took no appeal.

The plaintiffs own and operate a hotel-resort at Clear Lake. Their property borders the are of a cove on the lake. The defendants own property adjoining that of plaintiffs on the south. The shore line of the lake runs generally in an east-west direction in the easterly portion of plaintiffs’ property, and gradually curves to a north-south direction in the westerly portion of plaintiffs’ property.

For several years before this litigation arose plaintiffs had maintained a pier extending south into the lake from the easterly tip of plaintiffs’ land. This pier extended across

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defendants’ property line as that line is projected easterly into the lake. In 1958 defendants constructed a line of piling connected by boards from their property easterly into the lake, through plaintiffs’ pier and out into deeper water. The effect of defendants’ construction was to cut off plaintiffs’ access to the lake. Plaintiffs then requested, and the court issued, the mandatory injunction previously referred to.

The permanent injunction by its terms established and found the low water line of the lake with reference to the property of both plaintiffs and defendants, and prohibited defendants from constructing or maintaining any pier or piling easterly of the low water line. It further provided that no proceeding could be brought to enforce the injunction as long as plaintiffs maintained a pier, float or obstruction southerly of the low water line of the lake as described in the decree. Thus the effect of the decree is to prohibit defendants from constructing any pier which would block plaintiffs’ access to the lake and, in return, the decree would require plaintiffs to shorten their own pier back to the low water mark. Two diagrams marked “B” and “C” follow this opinion as an appendix. These drawings aptly illustrate the situation of the parties as the litigation began, and demonstrate in diagrammatic form the equitable result achieved by the court in its decree.