Opinion ID: 1827684
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Drainage Law Instruction

Text: Lees claim the trial court erred by incorrectly instructing the jury on applicable drainage law. Jury instructions are adequate, if, when considered as a whole, they correctly state the law applicable to the case. (emphasis added) Black v. Gardner, 320 N.W.2d 153, 160 (S.D.1982). Instruction 12 provided as follows: You are further instructed that the legal easement right of drainage has limitations even though the waters of the basin in question are surface waters and there is a legal burden upon servient lands to receive such waters through the natural water course crossing such lands, such burden and the accompanying easement is one that is reasonable, or, as previously instructed, one consonant with good neighborliness. Under the claim of an easement a party cannot rightfully turn upon the servient estate large volumes of water, out of all proportion to the capacity of the water course, and thus cause serious damage to the servient estate. (emphasis added) This instruction is clearly contrary to the major South Dakota cases on easement and drainage law. See Winterton v. Elverson, 389 N.W.2d 633, 635 (S.D.1986); Feistner v. Swenson, 368 N.W.2d 621 (S.D.1985); La Fleur v. Kolda, 71 S.D. 162, 22 N.W.2d 741 (1946); Thompson v. Andrews, 39 S.D. 477, 165 N.W. 9 (1917). It appears from a first reading of Instruction 12 that it is in accord with South Dakota drainage law because it points out that such burden and the accompanying easement is one that is reasonable, or, as previously instructed, [3] one consonant with good neighborliness. As indicated, on its face this appears in conformance with the law and reasonable[ness]. Even the second paragraph appears to be a correct statement of the law in that it points out that a party cannot rightfully turn upon the servient estate large volumes of water, out of all proportion to the capacity of the water course, and thus cause serious damage to the servient estate. However, upon closer examination, this actually becomes the test for reasonableness or good neighborliness, totally distorting the real meaning of reasonableness or good neighborliness. This incorrect test permits a dominant landowner far too much leeway in damaging the servient estate. This paragraph permits a party to turn upon the servient estate large volumes of water, out of all proportion to the capacity of the water course, as long as it does not produce serious damage to the servient estate. Read another way, it permits a party to turn upon the servient estate less than large volumes of water, out of all proportion to the capacity of the water course, even if it causes serious damage to the servient estate. Read the third way, it permits a party to turn upon the servient estate large volumes of water, causing serious damage to the servient estate, as long as it is in proportion to the capacity of the water course. This is not reasonableness, good neighborliness or the test in South Dakota. Thompson, supra ; La Fleur, supra ; Winterton, supra . In Gross v. Connecticut Mutual Life Ins. Co., 361 N.W.2d 259, 267 (S.D.1985), we stated: Drainage allowed, in conjunction with the natural easement rights set forth in Thompson, is `conditioned only that such drainage be accomplished without unreasonable injury to [one's neighbor's] land.' Thompson, 39 S.D. at 488, 165 N.W. at 13.... [S]urface water cannot be gathered together and cast in a body on the property of the lower owner ... so as to affect that neighbor's land in some other way than the way in which it has been affected before.