Opinion ID: 1161511
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Plaintiffs' perpetual profits a prendre, like easements, are subject to abandonment.

Text: [2] Following the common law this court has classified profits a prendre, together with easements, as incorporeal hereditaments. ( Callahan v. Martin, supra, 3 Cal.2d 110, 118; Schiffman v. Richfield Oil Co. (1937) 8 Cal.2d 211, 223 [64 P.2d 1081].) As we shall point out, for the purposes of the issue now before us, easements and profits a prendre are indistinguishable. [T]he term `easement' is so used [in the Restatement of Property] as to include within its meaning the special meaning commonly expressed by the term `profit.' ... In phrasing the rules applicable to each of these interests it has been found ... that in no case was there a rule applicable to one of these interests which was not also applicable to the other.... (Rest., Property, ง 450, Note; Costa v. Faw cett (1962) 202 Cal. App.2d 695 [21 Cal. Rptr. 143]; [10] Civ. Code, ง 802. [11] ) Substantiating the Restatement's conclusion, we explain that Callahan and Dabney-Johnston in defining the nature of a perpetual profit a prendre, such as the one involved in the instant case, employed language equally descriptive of a perpetual easement. Thus Dabney-Johnston Oil Corp v. Walden, supra, 4 Cal.2d 637 at p. 649, holds that [w]here [the profit] is unlimited in duration, it is a freehold interest, an estate in fee, and real property or real estate. The California cases have long held that these attributes, employed in Dabney-Johnston to describe a profit, are also characteristic of other perpetual incorporeal hereditaments. Thus in Appeal of North Beach & M.R.R. Co. (1867) 32 Cal. 499, for instance, this court described at some length the nature of an easement: [A]n easement is property ... an incorporeal hereditament, but it is still a tenement and an interest in the land. `... The interest of an easement may be freehold, or a chattel one, according to its duration.' (Wash. On Easements, 5, par. 5.) `An easement must be an interest in, or over the soil.' (Per Cresswell, J., in Rowbotham v. Wilson 8 Ellis and B. 157.) `A right of way is an assignable property. It is a real, or chattel interest, according to the term of its duration, and the former is well known in the law as that sort of real property belonging to the class of incorporeal hereditaments.' ( Ex parte Coburn, 1 Cow. 570; Heaton v. Ferris, 1 John 146.) It is real property, and it is created by grant. (P. 506.) We also noted that appellant railroad's easement was an interest in the land โ and ... real estate.... (P. 512.) (See also Corea v. Higuera (1908) 153 Cal. 451, 454 [95 P. 882, 17 L.R.A.N.S. 1018]; Roth v. Cottrell (1952) 112 Cal. App.2d 621, 625 [246 P.2d 958]; Balestra v. Button (1942) 54 Cal. App.2d 192, 198 [128 P.2d 816], for descriptions of perpetual easements as real property; Crowell v. City of Riverside (1938) 26 Cal. App.2d 566, 579 [80 P.2d 120]; Guy v. Brennan (1923) 60 Cal. App. 452, 454 [213 P. 265].) Furthermore, [T]he interest in land which an easement constitutes is real property and itself may be held in fee simple.... ( Highland Realty Co. v. City of San Rafael (1956) 46 Cal.2d 669, 677 fn. 1 [298 P.2d 15]; Appeal of North Beach & M.R.R. Co., supra, 32 Cal. 499, 509; City of Glendora v. Faus (1957) 148 Cal. App.2d 920, 921 [307 P.2d 976]; Ocean Shore R.R. Co. v. Doelger (1954) 127 Cal. App.2d 392, 398-399 [274 P.2d 23]; Irvin v. Petitfils (1941) 44 Cal. App.2d 496, 500 [112 P.2d 688]; Eastman v. Piper (1924) 68 Cal. App. 554, 562 [229 P. 1002]; 17 Cal.Jur.2d, Easements, ง 2, pp. 90-91.) [12] Thus, as we have noted, the cases have described the perpetual easement and the perpetual profit in identical terms and have treated these interests identically. (See Costa v. Fawcett, supra, 202 Cal. App.2d 695; Rest., Property, ง 450, Note.) Although no California authority precisely states whether the perpetual profit may be abandoned, we submit that the cases discussing abandonment of perpetual easements created by grant in real property disclose the appropriate rule. The cases have held that perpetual easements created by grant in real property can be abandoned. ( People v. Southern Pac. Co. (1916) 172 Cal. 692, 701 [158 P. 177]; Smith v. Worn (1892) 93 Cal. 206, 212 [28 P. 944]; Buechner v. Jonas (1964) 228 Cal. App.2d 127, 131 [39 Cal. Rptr. 298]; Lake Merced Golf & Country Club v. Ocean Shore R.R. Co. (1962) 206 Cal. App.2d 421, 436 [23 Cal. Rptr. 881]; Ocean Shore R.R. Co. v. Doelger (1960) 179 Cal. App.2d 222, 231 [3 Cal. Rptr. 706]; Haley v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. (1959) 172 Cal. App.2d 285, 291 [342 P.2d 476]; Ocean Shore R.R. Co v. Doelger, supra, 127 Cal. App.2d 392, 403; see Rest., Property, ง 504, com. a.) We conclude that profits, like easements, can be abandoned (see Miller v. State (1936) 121 Conn. 43, 48 [183 A. 17] (plaintiff abandoned his right to remove rock); Mathews Slate Co. v. Advance Industrial Supply Co. (1918) 185 App. Div. 74, 79 [172 N.Y.S. 830]). In so holding, we follow the general rule that all incorporeal hereditaments can be abandoned. (1 Am.Jur.2d, Abandoned Property, ง 14; 1 C.J.S., Abandonment, ง 5(c); see 1 Cal.Jur.2d, Abandonment, ง 9.) As the leading authorities in the field of oil and gas law, Professor Williams, Dean Maxwell, and Professor Meyers, have declared, such perpetual profits a prendre, constituting incorporeal hereditaments, were subject to abandonment. At common law, incorporeal estates but not corporeal estates were subject to extinguishment by abandonment. If the mineral grantee or lessee has merely an incorporeal estate, then the courts may be able to clear the title of the interest of such grantee or lessee who makes no effort for a long period of time to produce minerals from the land by holding that his nonaction is sufficient evidence of intent to abandon his incorporeal interest. (Williams, Maxwell, Meyers, Cases and Materials on the Law of Oil and Gas (1st ed. 1956); see also 1 Williams & Meyers, Oil & Gas Law, ง 210.1; Smith, Methods for Facilitating the Development of Oil and Gas Interests (1964) 43 Tex.L.Rev. 129, 161; cf. Woodward, Ownership of Interests in Oil and Gas (1965) 26 Ohio St.L.J. 353, 365-366.) The property law of this state thus compels the conclusion that the perpetual profits a prendre here involved are subject to abandonment.