Ducham v. Tuma

877 P.2d 1002, 265 Mont. 436, 51 State Rptr. 595, 1994 Mont. LEXIS 145
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 6, 1994
Docket93-534
StatusPublished
Cited by37 cases

This text of 877 P.2d 1002 (Ducham v. Tuma) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ducham v. Tuma, 877 P.2d 1002, 265 Mont. 436, 51 State Rptr. 595, 1994 Mont. LEXIS 145 (Mo. 1994).

Opinions

JUSTICE GRAY

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

In this case, we review a judgment issued by the Twentieth Judicial District Court, Sanders County, denying Plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction to stop Defendants’ discharge of water across their property. We reverse.

In 1959 and 1961, Lenora Hyland (Hyland) purchased adjoining tracts of property located north and south of each other in the Trout [439]*439Creek drainage in Sanders County. She used the land for agricultural purposes, raising cattle, sheep and hay. A swale, or shallow depression, crossed the two tracts from the northeast to the southwest.

In 1963, Hyland built a small stock pond straddling the swale on the northern tract. The pond originally was fed solely by spring run-off; Hyland diverted seepage from an irrigation ditch to fill the pond in 1968. She sold the two tracts in 1975 and purchased property directly to the west of the southern tract. The swale crosses the southeast corner of this property.

After intervening ownership of the northern and southern tracts by other individuals, those tracts were purchased by the parties to this action. Robert and Phyllis Turna (the Turnas) purchased the northern tract containing the stock pond in 1986 and constructed a trout pond in the swale uphill from the stock pond. The next year, they reconfigured the diversion mechanism at the irrigation ditch, using a four-inch pipe to conduct water to the trout pond. Leo and Verna Ducham (the Duchams) purchased the southern tract in 1988.

In August of 1989, the Duchams and Hyland (collectively referred to as Plaintiffs) filed a complaint asserting that the water diverted by the Turnas to supply the trout pond was being discharged across their property via the swale. They alleged that the Turnas’ discharge of water constituted a continuing trespass and interfered with the Duchams’ cultivation of crops on the southern tract.

Plaintiffs sought a temporary injunction during the pendency of the action and a permanent injunction to stop the discharge of water. Following a show cause hearing in August 1989, the District Court declined to issue a temporary injunction but admonished the Turnas to decrease the discharge of water to the minimum amount required to maintain the trout pond. In response, the Turnas reduced the opening of the four-inch diversion pipe to one-inch, presumably reducing the amount of water diverted into the trout pond and discharged down the swale.

Following a nonjury trial on June 3, 1993, the District Court declined to grant Plaintiffs a permanent injunction. The court found that water from the Turnas’ trout pond flowed across Plaintiffs’ property via the swale and that the Turnas had no express easement or condemned right-of-way for the discharge of water. The court concluded that Plaintiffs were not entitled to an injunction, however, because they had not proven that the Turnas 1) had breached a legal duty in regard to the discharge of water; 2) were negligent in any manner; or 3) had engaged in any unlawful conduct. The grant or [440]*440denial of an injunction is within the discretion of the district court and will not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion. Gabriel v. Wood (1993), 261 Mont. 170, 174, 862 P.2d 42, 44.

Plaintiffs assert that the District Court side-stepped the dispositive issue before it — whether the Tamas had a legal right to discharge water down the swale that would defeat their trespass to real property claim. On that basis, they raise two arguments challenging the court’s conclusions of law.

They first argue that the court erroneously entered conclusions of law on the irrelevant issues of the Turnas’ breach of a legal duty and negligence. We agree. The Turnas’ negligence in regard to the discharge of water was not explicitly or implicitly raised in the Pretrial Order or at trial and, thus, simply was not before the court. See Rule 16(e), M.R.Civ.P.; Zimmerman v. Robertson (1993), 259 Mont. 105, 111, 854 P.2d 338, 342; Nentwig v. United Industry (1992), 256 Mont. 134, 139, 845 P.2d 99, 102-03. The court’s entry of extraneous conclusions of law, however, did not affect the substantial rights of the parties and is, therefore, harmless error. See Woolf v. Evans (1994), [264 Mont. 480], 872 P.2d 777, 782, 51 St.Rep. 355, 358.

Plaintiffs’ second argument concerns the court’s conclusion that the Turnas’ conduct was not unlawful as a trespass to real property. Given the court’s failure to ascertain the Turnas’ legal right to discharge the water, Plaintiffs argue that the conclusion is erroneous as a matter of law. Our review of a district court’s legal conclusion is plenary. Steer, Inc. v. Dep’t of Revenue (1990), 245 Mont. 470, 474-75, 803 P.2d 601, 603-04.

We have adopted the elements of the tort of intentional trespass to real property set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 158:

One is subject to liability to another for trespass, irrespective of whether he thereby causes harm to any legally protected interest of the other, if he intentionally (a) enters land in possession of the other, or causes a thing or third person to do so, or (b) remains on the land, or (c) fails to remove from the land a thing which he is under a duty to remove.

Branstetter v. Beaumont Supper Club (1986), 224 Mont. 20, 24, 727 P.2d 933, 935 (emphasis added). In this context, the “intent” requirement is satisfied if the actor desires to cause the consequences of the act or believes that its consequences are substantially certain to result. Branstetter, 727 P.2d at 935.

The parties agreed in the Pretrial Order that water diverted by the Turnas into their trout pond flowed from the Turnas’ property [441]*441onto Plaintiffs’ property. Thus, it is clear that the Turnas “caused a thing” — namely, water — to enter onto land owned by Plaintiffs, satisfying subsection (a) of Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 158. Furthermore, the District Court’s finding No. 10 indicates that the discharge was intentional:

That shortly after Defendants Turna purchased the property they constructed a fish pond on their property by diverting water from the Green Mountain Ditch and running it through the fish pond, then onto the original pond created by Plaintiff Hyland, then on to the swale.

It is clear that the Turnas desired the overflow from the trout pond to be dispersed via the swale and, as surely as water runs downhill, to cross Plaintiffs’ property. Thus, all elements of an intentional trespass to real property are met in the case before us.

Conduct which otherwise would constitute an intentional trespass is not unlawful if it is privileged conduct pursuant to an easement. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 188. In Montana, easements are created by grant, reservation, exception or covenant, implication or prescription. Kuhlman v. Rivera (1985), 216 Mont.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
877 P.2d 1002, 265 Mont. 436, 51 State Rptr. 595, 1994 Mont. LEXIS 145, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ducham-v-tuma-mont-1994.