Court Opinion

ID: 9844508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:03:49.401665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:36.452630
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I concur in the judgment. Since this is an appeal from a judgment following an order sustaining a demurrer, the following allegations of the first amended complaint must be regarded as true. The Los Angeles River, which becomes a menace to the neighboring property during the rainy season because of its violent floods, overflowed plaintiff’s land during a storm in the first days of March, 1938, washed out the land to a depth of approximately six to ten feet, and destroyed buildings, other improvements, and personal property. The injury was caused by a system of flood control installed by defendant in the period between December, 1935, and the storm. The plaintiff’s property would have been protected from the flood, as it was in January, 1934, during an even greater flood, had the defendant not replaced the former system of flood control, installed by defendant between 1917 and 1930, with new structures that were inadequate for the purpose. The former installations consisted of permeable dikes of piling and wire mesh along the margin of the river bed through which the waters could freely flow into an overflow area on both sides of the river channel. These structures and the riparian vegetation reduced the velocity of the flood waters, rendering them less dangerous to neighboring property. Groins installed transversely to the overflow area accomplished the restoration and maintenance of the natural condition of the river by causing a regrowth of vegetation in the overflow area and the building up of that area with silt deposited by the water. The new construction work, mainly excavation of the river channel and installation of levees along its banks, necessitated removal of the shrubs and trees along the river. The channel was narrowed and its capacity to carry water lowered, while the velocity of the water through the channel was increased. Since the levees lacked adequate openings to permit the drainage waters to flow into the river, the danger to the adjacent land from overflowing water was intensified. The levees were built several feet above the level of the riparian area and were thus exposed to great pressure by the water compressed *394into the narrowed channel. They were constructed of sand and gravel upon which small stone blocks Avere laid on the inner slopes not bound together with cement or other material. As a consequence of this defective construction of the levees, upon which the adjacent land depended for its protection, the water could flow through the holes between the stone blocks and percolate through the levees. Thus, the invasion of plaintiff’s land by the flood water was caused by the defectiveness of defendant’s structures, which diverted the water out of its natural channel onto the plaintiff’s land. For the damages sustained, plaintiff seeks compensation from defendant under article I, section 14 of the California Constitution, providing that private property shall “not be taken or damaged for public use” without just compensation.
Defendant contends that plaintiff is seeking to revive an issue settled in Archer v. City of Los Angeles, 19 Cal.2d 19 [119 P.2d 1], and in O’Hara v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist., 19 Cal.2d 61 [119 P.2d 23], The Archer case involved the question whether a governmental agency is liable under article I, section 14, when improvements constructed by it along the natural course of a stream accelerate the flow of the water, and lower lands are flooded because of the inadequacy, known to the governmental agency, of the outlet to accommodate the increased flow. It was held that the governmental agency was not liable, since there is no liability under the constitutional provision if the property owner would have no cause of action were a private person to inflict the damage, and there would have been no cause of action against a private person for installing improvements in the stream accelerating the flow of the water but not diverting it out of its channel. (San Gabriel Valley Country Club v. County of Los Angeles, 182 Cal. 392 [188 P. 554, 9 A.L.R. 1200].) The O’Hara case involved the same question as the Archer case as well as the question Avhether a governmental agency is liable under the constitutional provision to a property owner whose property was damaged by the obstruction of the flow of surface water not running in a natural channel resulting from an embankment that prevented the drainage of surface waters into the .river. In reliance on Corcoran v. City of Benicia, 96 Cal. 1 [30 P. 798, 31 Am.St.Rep. 171]; Conniff v. San Francisco, 67 Cal. 45 [7 P. 41]; Jefferis v. City of Monterey Park, 14 Cal.App.2d 113 [57 P.2d 1374]; and *395Lampe v. San Francisco, 124 Cal. 546 [57 P. 461, 1001], it was held, that in constructing the improvement, the governmental agency could validly exercise its police power to obstruct the flow of surface waters not running in a natural channel without making compensation for the resulting damage. The present case differs from the Archer and O’Hara cases. In the former there was no evidence that defendants negligently diverted water out of its natural channel, and in the latter there was no allegation of such diversion. Here plaintiff’s allegations that the damages to her property were caused by diversion of the water of a river out of its natural channel onto her land by means of defective levees causing and allowing the water to burst out of its channel onto her land must be regarded as true.
Defendant contends that article I, section 14, is inapplicable upon the grounds that defendant did not deliberately take or damage plaintiff’s property and did not utilize it for the purposes of its public improvements, and that therefore the damages were not sustained for “public use,” and were too remote in point of time and foreseeability to be incident to defendant’s public undertaking.
Defendant is a publtion created by an act of the Legislature, known as the “Los Angeles Flood Control Act” (Stats. 1915, p. 1502, as amended; Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act 4463), to protect lands, including harbors and public highways from flood waters and to conserve the flood waters ic corporafor useful purposes. (§2 of the act; Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Hamilton, 177 Cal. 119, 126 [169 P. 1028].) These purposes are essentially public although beneficial to many private individuals (see Los Angeles v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist., 11 Cal.2d 395, 404 [80 P.2d 479]; Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Hamilton, supra, p. 124; Cheseboro v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist., 306 U.S. 459, 465 [59 S.Ct. 622, 83 L.Ed. 921]; see 29 C.J.S. 852; 70 A.L.R. 1274), and the Legislature properly vested defendant with the power of eminent domain. (§§2(6), 16, 16% of the act.) Property taken or damaged for defendant’s purposes is therefore “taken or damaged for public use” in the sense of the constitutional provision. In the absence of contract the right to discharge water onto another’s property may be based on property law or on the police power of the state. (Archer v. City of Los Angeles, supra, at p. 24.) If the discharging of water incident to the construction of a public *396improvement cannot be sustained as the exercise of a right, it is a taking or damaging within the meaning of the constitutional provision of the property injured. (Powers Farms v. Consolidated Irr. Dist., 19 Cal.2d 123, 126 [119 P.2d 717]; Pacific Seaside Home v. Newbert P. Dist., 190 Cal. 544 [213 P. 967] ; Elliott v. County of Los Angeles, 183 Cal. 472, 475 [191 P. 899]; Smith v. City of Los Angeles, 66 Cal.App.2d 562 [153 P.2d 69]; Conniff v. San Francisco, 67 Cal. 45, 48 [7 P. 41]; Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13, 16 [54 S.Ct. 26, 78 L.Ed. 142]; United States v. Cress, 243 U.S. 316, 327 [37 S.Ct. 380, 61 L.Ed. 746]; United States v. Lynah, 188 U.S. 445, 470 [23 S.Ct. 349, 47 L.Ed. 539]; Hurley v. Kincaid, 285 U.S. 95, 104 [52 S.Ct. 267, 76 L.Ed. 637]; Pumpelly v. Green Bay etc. Co., 13 Wall. 166, 177 [20 L.Ed. 557] ; Eaton v. Boston etc. Railroad, 51 N.H. 504 [12 Am.Rep. 147]; see Franklin v. United States, 101 F.2d 459; 128 A.L.R. 1195.) The destruction or damaging of property is sufficiently connected with “public use” as required by the Constitution, if the injury is a result of dangers inherent in the construction of the public improvement as distinguished from dangers arising from the negligent operation of the improvement. The construction of the public improvement is a deliberate action of the state or its agency in furtherance of public purposes. In erecting a structure that is inherently dangerous to private property, the state or its agency undertakes by virtue of the constitutional provision to compensate property owners for injury to their property arising from the inherent dangers of the public improvement or originating “from the wrongful plan or character of the work.” (Perkins v. Blauth, 163 Cal. 782, 789 [127 P. 50]; Kaufman v. Tomich, 208 Cal.19, 25 [280 P. 130]; Powers Farms v. Consolidated Irr. Dist., supra, p. 127; Reardon v. San Francisco, 66 Cal. 492, 505 [6 P. 317, 56 Am.Rep. 109].) This liability is independent of intention or negligence on the part of the governmental agency. (Reardon v. San Francisco, supra, at p. 505; Tormey v. Anderson-Cottonwood Irr. Dist., 53 Cal.App. 559 [200 P. 814], opinion of Supreme Court denying a hearing, p. 568; Powers Farms v. Consolidated Irr. Dist., supra, p. 126; Mitchell v. City of Santa Barbara, 48 Cal.App.2d 568, 572 [120 P.2d 131]; Morrison v. Clackamas County, 141 Ore. 564 [18 P.2d 814]; Hooker v. Farmers’ Irr. Dist., 272 F. 600; see 10 Cal.Jur. 337; 69 A.L.R. 1231.) The decisive consider*397ation is the effect of the public improvement on the property and whether the owner of the damaged property if uncompensated would contribute more than his proper share to the public undertaking. It is irrelevant whether or not the injury to the property is accompanied by a corresponding benefit to the public purpose to which the improvement is dedicated, since the measure of liability is not the benefit derived from the property, but the loss to the owner. (Rose v. State of California, 19 Cal.2d 713, 737 [123 P.2d 505]; City of Stockton v. Vote, 76 Cal.App. 369, 404 [244 P. 609]; Santa Ana v. Harlin, 99 Cal. 538, 542 [34 P. 224]; City of Redding v. Diestelhorst, 15 Cal.App.2d 184, 193 [59 P.2d 177]; City of Pasadena v. Union Trust Co., 138 Cal.App. 21, 25 [31 P.2d 463]; Temescal Water Co, v. Marvin, 121 Cal.App. 512, 521 [9 P.2d 335]; see 18 Am.Jur., Eminent Domain § 240 et seq.) Defendant, therefore, cannot rely on the fact that the injury to the property was caused, not by a deliberate appropriation thereof, but by a collapse of defendant’s structures. It is of no avail to defendant that the invasion of plaintiff’s property in the manner in which it happened was not foreseeable. The provision in article I, section 14, that the compensation for the taking or damaging of property shall be paid in advance protects the interests of the property-owner where advance payment is feasible under the circumstances; liability is not avoided simply because such payment is not feasible. The public purpose was not the mere construction of the improvement but the protection that it would afford against floods. The dangers inherent in the improvement would cause injury only when storms put the flood control system to a test. The injury sustained by plaintiff was therefore not too remote.
According to the complaint the injury to plaintiff’s land was caused by direct invasion thereof by water bursting through defendant’s levees. Compensation for that injury is called for under article I, section 14, if the flood waters would not have injured her property but for the directing of the water out of its channel onto the plaintiff’s property because of the defectiveness of the levees. By allowing the water to leave its channel and to burst onto the plaintiff’s land, the levees diverted the water out of its natural channel. Barring situations of immediate emergency, neither the property law nor the police power of the state entitles a governmental agency to divert water out of its natural channel onto *398private property. (Larrabee v. Cloverdale, 131 Cal. 96, 98 [63 P. 143]; Los Angeles Cem. Assn. v. Los Angeles, 103 Cal. 461, 467 [37 P. 375]: Conniff v. San Francisco, supra, at p. 49, see 7 So.Cal.L.Rev. 295.)
Edmonds, J., concurred.