Court Opinion

ID: 9534889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:43:23.664038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:07.029156
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice
(dissenting).
Many important factual aspects of this case have not been mentioned in the majority opinion. After the use of the canal for floating logs was discontinued in 1924, the canal became clogged to such an extent in places that cattle could walk across it. It served no drainage function at the time relators acquired the property in 1959. One of the Poole witnesses agreed with this. He said the only flow water in the canal at the time the levee was built consisted of tidewater and standing water caused by rain falling directly into the canal.
This fact, in my opinion, destroyed any servitude of drainage, if one was in fact ever acquired. A servitude of drain is not such unless it serves a drainage function.
What has not been emphasized in the majority opinion, and what is of such overriding significance in this case, is the fact that the greatest part of the lands involved are tidal overflow lands. A detailed investigation of the land and a review of the tidal overflow history of the area, including past hurricane surges, revealed that during the years 1961-1965, the lands involved were subject to flooding on 237, 195, 148, 218 and 259 days for each of the respective years. A protection levee with a crown elevation of 6 or 7 feet was recommended.
It was established by uncontradicted expert testimony that to open the levee system at the points ordered by the trial court and court of appeal would open the Guste property to flood water and render it uséless, or by moving the levee at an expenditure of $50,000 flooding could be avoided.
At the same time, unimpeached expert testimony established that a canal on the Poole property called the Peters Canal, immediately adjacent to the float-road canal, would perform the identical function as the float-road canal since it too opened to the Bedico Canal and thence to Lake Pontchartrain, if only the Pooles would open their own unused Peters levee at one point. But the court of appeal and this Court re*1132fused to recognize this fact or require the Pooles to alleviate a problem partially of their own making. Because of the refusal of the Pooles to open this levee at nominal costs, 5,000 acres of Guste property must remain unproductive or the expenditure of $50,000 is necessary. I fail to see the equity of this result. Adams v. Town of Rustan, 194 La. 403, 193 So. 688 (1940); Young v. International Paper Co., 179 La. 803, 155 So. 231 (1934).
Important, too, is the fact that no court has reached a conclusion as to the over-all dominance between the two estates. Rather their opinions seem to be concerned more with individual points along the boundary line between the Poole and Guste properties.
Article 660 of the Civil Code is concerned with servitudes which originate from the natural situation of the places and prescribes:
It is a servitude due by the estate situated below to receive the waters which run naturally from the estate situated above, provided the industry of man has not been used to create the servitude.
The proprietor below is not at liberty to raise any dam, or to make any other work, to prevent this running of the water.
The proprietor above can do nothing whereby the natural servitude due by the estate below may be rendered more burdensome.
This article of the code as interpreted by this Court in Broussard v. Cormier, 154 La. 877, 98 So. 403 (1923), and more recently in Nicholson v. Holloway Planting Co., 255 La. 1, 229 So.2d 679 (1969), convinces me that the over-all dominancy between two large estates is the controlling factor and not isolated points of drainage disproportionately small to the whole property. Where these isolated points create drainage problems the proprietor above (assuming the Poole property to be the superior estate) should be compelled to adjust the drainage within his estate and absorb the problem within the estate itself. He should not be permitted to impose upon his neighbor such a hardship as this case presents.
Visual inspection, upon which reliance was placed, is not reliable where the question of drainage concerns large, flat, tidal overflow, marshy areas. The only reliable testimony in these cases is duly qualified expert opinion based upon detailed evaluation studies and other supporting data. The only testimony in this latter category was expressed by Robert Berlin, surveyor admitted by the Pooles to be “eminently qualified,” who was shown to be an expert in the use and interpretation of aerial photography.
He undertook an over-all drainage study, in the course of which he prepared one large aerial photograph whereon he superimposed the elevation data and general *1134direction of drainage of the two properties. In his opinion the Guste estate was the dominant estate and the direction of drainage was south and westerly. By contrast, the surveyor presented on behalf of the Poole interest was never asked which estate was dominant. His testimony concerned drainage at isolated points along the boundary.
In these circumstances the Guste property as the dominant estate owes no obligation to the Poole property except to “do nothing whereby the natural servitude due by the estate below may be rendered more burdensome.” La. Civil Code art. 660. This the Gustes have not done. To the contrary they have relieved the Poole property of any water flow from the Guste property.
Even assuming that the Guste property is the servient estate, the exceptional circumstances of this situation demand a contrary result. In Mailhot v. Pugh, 30 La.Ann. 1359 (1878), the defendant conceived a plan for the defense of his plantation from floods which this Court considered intelligent and systematic. He wanted, and sought, the cooperation of the neighboring plantation owner in the construction of a common system of protection levees but the plaintiff refused, just as the facts of this case disclose that the Gustes sought the cooperation of the Pooles. Defendant then built a protection levee between the two estates and plaintiff sued' for damage to his crop caused by the water the' levee threw back on his property. In this context the broader question of the servitude of drain owed to an upper estate was presented. Our predecessors, relying upon Dalbon contre Graveson of the French tribunals, quoted from that decision, saying:
The owner of the lower ground has the right to build dikes or other works to guarantee his property against innundation, even though he aggravates thereby the damages which may be caused to the superior proprietor. (Translation supplied.)
The Court then observed that the French court in its opinion explains that the principles governing such cases are different from those regulating natural servitudes, and that works to guard against innundations of one’s property from floods or torrents (hurricane surges) are regulated by other principles than those which regulate natural servitudes (La.Civil Code art. 660). Every one can preserve his property from floods even though the works will surely damage his neighbor, the court continued on French authority. Journal du Palais, 1813, p. 384; Duvernoy contre Sampso, Idem.1861, p. 888.
Quoting from Chardon, treating the obligations of the proprietor, the court recognized that all works may be executed which are judged appropriate to guard properties, against flood disasters whether *1136it be by dikes or other structures. And the failure of the neighbor to do likewise makes his damage due to his indolence and not to the vigilance of the proprietor who erects protective works.
Summarizing, the court noted:
So Demolombe, reiterating what had been taught by his predecessors with striking unanimity, that a proprietor has a right to protect himself from damage by an overflow by the erection of works of his own land, even though they should cause the overflow to be more hurtful to his neighbor.
Demolombe was again quoted. He observed that it was inconceivable that the law would impose upon proprietors the obligation to let their property be damaged by floods without being able to do anything about it. These principles, he wrote, which allow the proprietor to protect his lands conform with reason and equity and have always been recognized in the ancient Roman and French jurisprudence and were at that time consecrated by unanimous accord. Tome 11, No. 30.
What these authorities so wisely expound is that the law of drain servitude does not and cannot apply to flat marsh and swamp where tide is the prevailing cause of water flow. The reason for this should be obvious. Tidal waters alternately rise and fall. Consequently these waters run both ways, in and out of the lands so affected. Drainage laws on the other hand were enacted to govern the flow of water in one direction. The rule of Article 660 cannot apply to lands periodically and so frequently subject to overflow and innundation by storm and tide.
The vast reaches of lowlands, swamp and marsh which dominate the coastal regions of Louisiana can never be protected against the frequent surges of hurricanes or the ravages of floods by wind or tide and turned to agricultural or industrial uses under the narrow view the Court articulates today. It is an unrealistic application of the law detrimental to a substantial area of our State. Despite the fact that this case lends itself so well to the sound rule of law expounded by the jurisconsults and tribunals of France, no reference to that position has been made by the majority.
I respectfully dissent.