Court Opinion

ID: 9827255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:20:17.658951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:27.759091
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
A careful review by us of the written contract introduced by appellees and referred to in our original opinion convinces us that it has no bearing upon the merits of this case, and all references to it as sustaining the trial court’s judgment are withdrawn.
But we overrule appellees’ motion for rehearing on the trial court’s conclusion “that the North Amelia lateral is a distributing ditch,” and the further conclusion by us that the issue was raised under the evidence that this ditch was not constructed originally as a permanent part of the canal system of the Neches Canal Company. On the issue that the “lateral” was a mere “distributing ditch,” Mr. J. E. Broussard, shown by the record to be an irrigation expert, testified:
“The North Amelia lateral is nothing more than a large distributing ditch from the main lateral. This is all it is.”
As we understand the evidence, a “lateral” is constructed as a permanent part of the canal system, while a distributing ditch is of a temporary nature. On the issue of intent controlling the character of the lateral, Mr. Broussard testified:
“I didn’t know that it belonged to the Neches Canal Company, they had not identified it of record, you see. I had no knowledge they were exercising any claim whatever on that lateral. We have a lot of laterals that run through different farms that we don’t have any claim on, that belongs to the property owners. If a farmer wants to get water, he agrees to let it go through his land. I am speaking of the Beaumont Irrigating Company now. The only claim that we have to those laterals is the right to run water through as long as the farmers want it and as long as it is necessary, and whenever it is .abandoned the land goes back to the property owners. I thought the Neches Canal Company operated along the same lines. When I bought my land I didn’t know that the lateral "was being used; it didn’t appear to have been used the year before; I didn’t know that the Neches Canal Company even asserted any kind of claim to it. I think it wds 1924 when I bought my property. When I bought my property the lateral showed to have been abandoned and in a bad state of repair. It was in' a bad state of repair, and you couldn’t hardly call it a lateral at that time. It was not in condition for water to be run through for irrigation purposes, at that time. They have done a little repair on it since then; I think it was last year that they did a little repair work on it, and I protested against its use at that time, and they said they had already promised water to Mr. Reed a way down on the Cartwright property, and I consented at that time that they might go ahead and pump the water, and Mr. Reed spoke to me about it, and I said, ‘That is all right;, go ahead and use it this year, but I didn’t want them to use it any longer,’ and I also told him, ‘I didn’t think that *284they had any right to it,’ but that -they could go ahead and use it that year because it wasn’t bothering us then and we wasn’t trying to sell it to anybody to live on at that time.”
If the Neches Canal . Company’s grantor consented and agreed that the canal company might build their North Amelia lateral across her property, knowing that it was to be used permanently as a part of the canal system, her license, though verbal, was irrevocable and binding, not only upon her, hut her grantees, the appellees here. The authorities denounce as á fraud the revocation of a parol license to permanently occupy and improve realty after any considerable expense has been incurred on the faith of such license; but, if the parties did not intend the improvement to be permanent, the license is at will only. Such a license has been denominated “a mere personal favor to the licensee,” and is said to be “revocable at will,” and that expenditures under authority of the license “would naturally be made accordingly.” This conclusion does not rest upon the definitions of the terms “lateral” and “irrigation ditch” deducible from ' the record. Whatever may be the technical meaning of these words, the rights of the parties should be determined by the intent of the parties, the original licensor in giving the license, and the licensee in accepting it. Such laterals as described in the record are built in connection with and to facilitate the use of irrigation systems. Without controversy, it was shown that the Neehes Canal Company has peremptorily, 'that is, without sanction of law, or without asking permission, abandoned one of its laterals adjacent to the one in issue. The record shows that for years this lateral in issue was not used, and, when buying his property, which was crossed by this lateral in 1922, Mr. Broussard thought it had been .abandoned. All such evidence was adnjissible on the issue of intent at the time the Neches Canal Company constructed this North Amelia lateral, and by this evidence the issue was raised that the original license was intended as a mere personal favor to the Neches Canal Company, and not as an estate or easement in the land. By the trial court’s judgment that issue was found in favor of appellees. On that conclusion the original license was revocable at will, regardless of the expenditures made by appellants, and the issue of limitation was not raised against appellees. The authorities on this proposition are discussed and reviewed by the Supreme Court of Oregon in Shaw v. Proffitt, 57 Or. 192, 109 P. 584, 110 P. 1092, Ann. Cas. 1913A, 63. While the Texas cases are not cited in that case, as we understand the decisions of our courts, the same principles are judicially recognized. Railway Co. v. Sweat, 20 Tex. Civ. App. 543, 50 S. W. 162; Knowles v. Traction Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 121 S. W. 232; Railway Co. v. Jarrell, 60 Tex. 267; Capps v. Railway Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 50 S. W. 643.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.