Opinion ID: 1196629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the archer decision

Text: The Court of Appeal based its ruling on this court's statement in Archer that there is no diversion [for which liability would exist] if surface waters, flowing in no defined channel, are for a reasonable purpose gathered together and discharged into the stream that is their natural means of drainage even though the stream channel is inadequate to accommodate the increased flow. ( Archer, supra, 19 Cal.2d 19, 26.) The Court of Appeal also concluded that decisions subsequent to Archer had reaffirmed, not repudiated, the holding in Archer that governmental entities are immune from liability under article I, section 19 of the California Constitution insofar as that holding was applicable to damages for which a private owner would be shielded from liability by the natural watercourse rule. That  Archer exception to inverse condemnation liability held that [i]f the property owner would have no cause of action were a private person to inflict the damage, he can have no claim for compensation from the state. ( Archer, supra, 19 Cal.2d 19, 24.) To put in perspective our examination of public and private landowner responsibility for damage to downstream property caused by discharge of surface waters into a natural watercourse, it is therefore appropriate to define these terms and to describe in more detail the Archer decision.
(1) In the arcane area of water law under consideration in this case, the rights and liabilities of private property owners for property damage or personal injury are in large part dependent upon classification of the water as surface waters, flood waters, or stream waters. Water diffused over the surface of land, or contained in depressions therein, and resulting from rain, snow, or which rises to the surface in springs, is known as `surface water.' It is thus distinguishable from water flowing in a fixed channel, so as to constitute a watercourse, or water collected in an identifiable body, such as a river or lake. The extraordinary overflow of rivers and streams is known as `flood water.' (Tiffany on Real Property (3d ed.) § 740; 8 Cal.L.Rev. 197.) ( Keys v. Romley (1966) 64 Cal.2d 396, 400 [50 Cal. Rptr. 273, 412 P.2d 529].)
(2) A natural watercourse is a channel with defined bed and banks made and habitually used by water passing down as a collected body or stream in those seasons of the year and at those times when the streams in the region are accustomed to flow. It is wholly different from a swale, hollow, or depression through which may pass surface waters in time of storm not collected into a defined stream. ( San Gabriel V.C. Club v. Los Angeles (1920) 182 Cal. 392, 397 [188 P. 554, 9 A.L.R. 1200].) A canyon or ravine through which surface water runoff customarily flows in rainy seasons is a natural watercourse. Alterations to a natural watercourse, such as the construction of conduits or other improvements in the bed of the stream, do not affect its status as a natural watercourse. ( LeBrun v. Richards (1930) 210 Cal. 308, 317, 318 [291 P. 825, 72 A.L.R. 336]; Larrabee v. Cloverdale (1900) 131 Cal. 96, 99-100 [63 P. 143].) A natural watercourse includes all channels through which, in the existing condition of the country, the water naturally flows, and may include new channels created in the course of urban development through which waters presently flow. ( Larrabee v. Cloverdale, supra, 131 Cal. at p. 100.) Once surface waters have become part of a stream in a watercourse, they are no longer recognized as surface waters. ( San Gabriel V.C. Club v. Los Angeles, supra, 182 Cal. at p. 398.)
Archer, supra, 19 Cal.2d 19, was an action brought by nonriparian landowners for damage caused to their property when surface water runoff channeled into a natural watercourse, from which it was discharged into a lagoon, exceeded the capacity of an outlet pipe from the lagoon to the sea, backed up, and caused flooding. Although the injury was to nonriparian landowners, the court applied the rules then governing the liability of upper riparian landowners to lower riparian owners and the decision has since been relied on as establishing immunity for any damage to downstream riparian property caused by discharge of surface water runoff into a natural watercourse. The plaintiffs in Archer were owners of property near La Ballona Lagoon. La Ballona Creek, a natural watercourse, drained surface waters from an area of about 134 square miles into the lagoon, from which the waters emptied into the Pacific Ocean. As residential and commercial development occurred in the hills at the upper reaches of the creek, surface waters that had not followed a defined course were diverted into ditches and channels which emptied into the creek. Defendants, the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, straightened, widened and deepened the creek. They constructed concrete storm drains to improve drainage. As a result of these changes less water was absorbed into the ground and the flow of waters from the creek into the lagoon was accelerated. Defendants did not improve the outlet from the lagoon to the ocean, however, and after a heavy rain the water in the lagoon backed up, flooding plaintiffs' property. They sued on a theory of inverse condemnation under former section 14 (now section 19) of article I of the California Constitution. Nonsuit was granted and plaintiffs appealed. Under what was then this court's view of article I, section 14, the predecessor to present section 19, the Constitution did not create a cause of action. It did no more than waive the state's sovereign immunity if a cause of action would otherwise exist. Therefore, plaintiffs could recover only if a private landowner would be responsible for the damage suffered by plaintiffs. If a private party had the right to inflict the damage without incurring liability, the governmental defendants would not be liable. The court therefore analyzed the claim as it would one involving the rights of private landowners to drain surface waters from their property into a natural watercourse. The court stated the applicable rules as: 1. A lower owner may not recover for injury to his land caused by improvements made in the stream for the purpose of draining or protecting the land above, even though the channel is inadequate to accommodate the increased flow of water resulting from the improvements. It is immaterial that the improvements increase the volume and velocity of the water, that the lower owner's burden of protecting his property is increased, or that his land is damaged. 2. Improvements must follow the natural drainage and may not divert water into a different channel, but straightening, widening, and deepening the channel does not constitute a diversion. 3. There is no diversion if, for a reasonable purpose, diffused surface waters are gathered and discharged into a stream that is their natural means of drainage even if the watercourse is inadequate to accommodate the increased flow. An upper riparian landowner may gather surface waters for a reasonable purpose and discharge them into a natural watercourse without liability to a lower owner for damage caused by the increased flow. Possibly because there was no claim that the defendants had acted unreasonably in their upstream improvements, however, the Archer holding omitted reference to an important qualification on the rights of the upper riparian owner implied in San Gabriel V.C. Club v. Los Angeles, supra, 182 Cal. 392, the case on which Archer relied for the rule: i.e., that the purpose for the improvements not only be reasonable, but the improvements must also be constructed in a manner that was no more burdensome to the lower riparian owner than required for that purpose. (182 Cal. at pp. 396, 399-401.) This qualification was implied repeatedly in San Gabriel V.C. Club v. Los Angeles, supra, 182 Cal. 392, viz.: No complaint is made of the manner in which the drains are constructed, or that they are not reasonable improvements for the district they are designed to protect, or that they are unnecessarily injurious to the plaintiff.... ( Id., at pp. 399-400.) [In the related situation of release of water from a mill] no right of action by a land owner below exists because of the increase of volume and consequent acceleration of flow, provided the use is a reasonable one and exercised in a reasonable manner. ( Id., at p. 401.) Certainly the San Gabriel V.C. Club decision did not hold that any surface water drainage into a natural watercourse was immunized in this state. It implied the contrary, and made it clear that this question was not before the court. [D]ecisions in other states go further than it is necessary to go in this case, and hold that a riparian owner has no right to complain because the volume of water in the stream is increased by artificially draining surface waters into it above, provided only the stream is the natural drainage channel for the lands so drained. (182 Cal. at pp. 401-402.) Since there was no issue involving unreasonable conduct in draining surface waters into the stream bed in Archer, supra, 19 Cal.2d 19, that decision also fails to support a conclusion that immunity exists regardless of whether the upstream owner acted reasonably. Moreover, the principal focus of both Archer, supra, 19 Cal.2d 19, and San Gabriel V.C. Club v. Los Angeles, supra, 182 Cal. 392, was on alterations of and improvements in the stream bed itself, and on waters that had lost their character as surface waters and had become stream waters before they reached the stream bed improvements (drains) constructed by the defendants. Neither case addressed liability for downstream damage caused by the discharge of surface waters into a natural watercourse. Therefore, we do not assume, as do defendants, that the rule governing surface waters has no application here or that Archer established a rule granting immunity to an upstream riparian owner for damages caused as a result of discharges of surface water into a natural watercourse regardless of whether his conduct was reasonable with regard to downstream owners.