Jersey Farm Co. v. Atlanta Realty Co.

129 P. 593, 164 Cal. 412, 1912 Cal. LEXIS 361
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 30, 1912
DocketS.F. No. 5872.
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 129 P. 593 (Jersey Farm Co. v. Atlanta Realty Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jersey Farm Co. v. Atlanta Realty Co., 129 P. 593, 164 Cal. 412, 1912 Cal. LEXIS 361 (Cal. 1912).

Opinions

HENSHAW, J.

This appeal is from an order granting a preliminary injunction restraining defendant and appellant from interfering with the repair and maintenance by plaintiff of a levee and from interfering with the use and repair of a drainage canal and pumping plant, all situated upon the land of the "appellant.

The controversy arises under the following facts: There is in the county of Contra Costa a tract of land comprising over three thousand nine hundred acres which in the state of nature is overflowed by the waters of the San Joaquin River. This land unreclaimed, is valueless, reclaimed, is very valu *414 able. Tears ago it was reclaimed by its then owner, the reclamation consisting of the construction of a levee around the exterior boundaries of the tract and the excavation of drainage canals conducting the water to the lowest part of the tract where a pumping plant was erected, and the excess water pumped out of the canal and off the land. The levees, canals, ditches, and pumping plant were constructed, installed, and operated as a single indivisible system for reclaiming all of the land and they are still indispensable for its use and cultivation. In 1907 Nathan Fisher was the owner of the land. He made a deed of trust to Archibald Kains, trustee for the benefit of Myra E. Wright, beneficiary, to secure the payment of a sum of money owing by Fisher to Wright. The deed of trust contained a provision empowering Nathan Fisher or his grantee to demand reconveyance of any portion of the tract in lots of not less than fifty acres on the payment of a certain specified sum of money per acre. Herman Bendel by mesne conveyances succeeded to the title and rights of Fisher and tendering the requisite amount of money demanded from the trustee a reconveyance of fifty acres. The fifty acres whose reconveyance was thus demanded was the lowest land of the tract. Upon it was established the pumping plant to which pumping plant by a main canal were conducted the surplus waters of the whole tract. The exterior protecting levee extended along the river frontage of this tract. The trustee refused to make the conveyance and Bendel brought suit to compel him to do so. A decree was given commanding the execution of the deed which the trustee thereupon executed. Subsequently Bendel conveyed this fifty acres to the defendant and appellant herein. Previous to the execution of the trustee’s deed to Bendel the trustee had executed under the terms of his trust a deed of all of the rest of the tract to Myra E. Wright. To all the interest of Myra E. Wright in this land plaintiff has succeeded. Defendant refused plaintiff admission to its lands for the purpose of maintaining the outer levee upon the lands, of maintaining and using the drainage canal, and of maintaining and using the pumping plant to expel waters from the drainage canal. Plaintiff insisted upon its right to enter the land of appellant for these purposes. The injunction forbade defendant from interfering with plaintiff in the exercise of its asserted rights.

*415 Appellant’s first proposition is that section 801 of the Civil Code enumerates all the burdens by way of servitudes which may be attached to land for the benefit of the dominant tenement and that the burdens imposed by the decree upon its land do not come under any of the classifications enumerated in that section; that the only other section which can have reference to the matter is 1104 of the same code which declares: “A transfer of real property passes all easements attached thereto, and creates in favor thereof an easement to use other real property of the person whose estate is transferred in the same manner and to the same extent as such property was obviously and permanently used by the person whose estate is transferred, for the benefit thereof, at the time when the transfer was agreed upon or completed.” This section, it is said, affords no ground for the relief awarded to respondent for, it is argued, the easements contemplated by section 1104 are such, and such only, as are classified and enumerated in section 801. This, however, we think to be an incorrect construction of the two sections. The ingenuity and foresight of the legislature would be taxed in vain to name and classify all the burdens which might be imposed upon land. By section 801 it enumerated some of them. By section 1104 it declared generally that in the case of a transfer of real property other easements may spring into existence, easements which could not be enumerated for the very reason that they embrace every burden which by virtue of the manner of use has been imposed upon the portion of the estate not granted in favor of the portion granted. It is a direct recognition of the principle long established and fully recognized by this court (Cave v. Crafts, 53 Cal. 135 ; Quinlan v. Noble, 75 Cal. 250, [17 Pac. 69]), that principle being that “where the owner of two tenements sells one of them, or the owner of the entire estate sells a portion of it, the purchaser takes the tenement or portion sold with all the benefits and with all the burdens that appear at the time of the sale to belong to it as between it and the property which the vendor retains. ” It is this general principle which is given full recognition by section 1104 and its application is by no means limited to the list of servitudes and corresponding easements enumerated in section 801 of the Civil Code. It follows, therefore, that the character of the burden imposed upon the *416 servient tenement is not controlling, that it is of no consequence whether that particular burden will fall into or can be forced into any of the seventeen subdivisions of section 801. If it be a burden obviously cast upon the land at the time of the segregation of the title it remains a burden upon that land in favor of the other parcel, and it is an “easement” within the meaning of section 1104 even if it does not come within the limitations of section 801 because section 1104 itself designates it an easement. We have before us, then, one complete scheme of reclamation to which the surrounding levee was an essential part, the main drainage canal upon the fifty acres to which all the other drainage canals led another essential part, and finally, and quite as indispensable, the pumping plant to eject the surplus waters. It would work the destruction of the whole plan to recognize the easement of any of these essentials and not of all. Nor, it may be added, is the right to use a pump under such circumstances a unique burden upon land in the history of the law. Similar cases may be found in Seymour v. Lewis, 13 N. J. Eq. 439, [78 Am. Dec. 108] ; Larsen v. Peterson, 53 N. J. Eq. 88, [30 Atl. 1094]. It is a matter of indifference to the conclusion thus reached, whether the trustee of the whol° tract be considered as the absolute owner at the time of the transfers, or whether the successor in interest of Nathan Fisher, the trustor, be considered the owner. In the one case the trustee deeds all of the tract saving the fifty acres to Myra B. Wright and in favor of the land thus conveyed to her springs up the easement to use the remaining fifty acres for the indicated purposes. The later conveyance of the fifty acres would of course be subject to these easements. Precisely the same construction would obtain if Nathan Fisher or his grantee be treated as the owner of the whole tract at the time of the making of the deeds.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Piazza v. Schaefer
255 Cal. App. 2d 328 (California Court of Appeal, 1967)
Laux v. Freed
348 P.2d 873 (California Supreme Court, 1960)
Richard v. Baker
297 P.2d 674 (California Court of Appeal, 1956)
Dixon v. Eastown Realty Co.
233 P.2d 138 (California Court of Appeal, 1951)
Stock v. Meek
221 P.2d 15 (California Supreme Court, 1950)
Navarro v. Paulley
153 P.2d 397 (California Court of Appeal, 1944)
Rees v. Drinning
148 P.2d 378 (California Court of Appeal, 1944)
Greene v. Fickert
122 P.2d 93 (California Court of Appeal, 1942)
Wright v. Best
19 Cal. 2d 368 (California Supreme Court, 1942)
Fischer v. Hendler
121 P.2d 792 (California Court of Appeal, 1942)
Rosebrook v. Utz
114 P.2d 715 (California Court of Appeal, 1941)
Swarzwald v. Cooley
103 P.2d 580 (California Court of Appeal, 1940)
Johnson v. Armour & Co.
291 N.W. 113 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 1940)
Schudel v. Hertz
13 P.2d 1008 (California Court of Appeal, 1932)
Silveira v. Smith
246 P. 58 (California Supreme Court, 1926)
Crease v. Jarrell
224 P. 762 (California Court of Appeal, 1924)
Vargas v. Maderos
214 P. 849 (California Supreme Court, 1923)
Henika v. Lange
203 P. 798 (California Court of Appeal, 1921)
Palvutzian v. Terkanian
190 P. 503 (California Court of Appeal, 1920)
Nay v. Bernard
180 P. 827 (California Court of Appeal, 1919)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
129 P. 593, 164 Cal. 412, 1912 Cal. LEXIS 361, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jersey-farm-co-v-atlanta-realty-co-cal-1912.