Louisiana Irrigation & Mill Co. v. Pousson

252 So. 2d 151, 1971 La. App. LEXIS 5669
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedAugust 20, 1971
DocketNo. 3476
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 252 So. 2d 151 (Louisiana Irrigation & Mill Co. v. Pousson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Louisiana Irrigation & Mill Co. v. Pousson, 252 So. 2d 151, 1971 La. App. LEXIS 5669 (La. Ct. App. 1971).

Opinion

CULPEPPER, Judge.

Plaintiff filed this suit under LSA-C.C.P. Article 3663(2) to enjoin the defendant from interfering with plaintiff’s possession of a servitude for a lateral irrigation canal. The district judge granted a temporary restraining order and, after hearing, a preliminary injunction. Defendant appealed. Plaintiff answered the appeal, seeking a permanent injunction.

The substantial issue is whether plaintiff has proved it possessed the servitude for more than a year previous to defendant’s disturbance of that possession on or about March 20, 1970.

For the purpose of clarity, we have appended a copy of a plat which is essentially the same as Exhibit P-2 filed in evidence. The lateral canal in question starts at point A on plaintiff’s main canal and is shown by the heavy dark line running in a westerly and then a southwesternly direction to point B.

The evidence shows clearly that the entire canal, from A to B, was used and possessed by the plaintiff irrigation company to furnish water to rice farmers for many years preceding 1967, with the possible exception of the portion from Y to B, which Mr. Calvin Sensat testified was not built until about 1965. This use of the canal by plaintiff consisted of maintenance of the levees, outlets, etc., and , running water through the canal during the rice irrigation season, which normally extends from some time in March through July each year.

In 1962, the defendant, James Wallace Pousson, dug his own well at point G on his property in Section 19, as shown on the attached plat. He also constructed his own irrigation canal, as shown by the line on the plat leading from G to A and thence along the north side of plaintiff’s canal to point M, where it turns south and crosses the road to the property of Bernard Regan and thence runs in a westerly and southerly direction on to point Z, located on defendant’s property in Section 21. Defendant used his own well and his own canal from 1962 until 1967 to flood his rice in Sections 19 and 21.

In 1967, plaintiff did not use its canal, since it had no contracts to furnish water. It was in that year that defendant first used a portion of plaintiff’s canal. The circumstances under which this use by defendant started were that Mr. Bernard Regan had planted soybeans on his property, and water from defendant’s canal escaped and flooded some of the beans. Since plaintiff was not using its canal, defendant switched over and used it from N to Y.

In 1968, Bernard Regan planted rice on his property and he contracted with the plaintiff for water. This water was furnished by plaintiff from its main canal at point A and thence along the lateral canal in dispute to point N, which, according to the testimony, is about 75 feet from Regan’s property line. At point N plaintiff’s canal was blocked and the water went into Re-gan’s field. In that year plaintiff did not use its canal below point N. Defendant testified that in 1968 he again used that portion of plaintiff’s canal from N to Y to flood his rice in Section 21.

In 1969, plaintiff used its canal from A to B and there is no evidence of any use by defendant or any other person. In that year plaintiff had contracts to furnish water to Bernard Regan, to Casper Trumps, whose property is shown along the south end of the canal in question, and to Theresa Bartlett’s property at the south end of the canal and which was farmed that year by Lloyd La Combe.

The exact date on which plaintiff commenced using its canal in 1969 is not clear from the evidence. Neither plaintiff’s gen[153]*153eral manager, Mr. Barton Freeland, nor its canal manager, Curley Regan, could give the exact dates in 1969 when they prepared the canal for use and first started running water through it. Calvin Sensat testified that he planted the rice for Casper Trumps on May 26, 1969, and that normally the rice would have been flooded two weeks after planting, which would have been about June 10, 1969. We have carefully reviewed the evidence but are simply unable to determine the dates in 1969 when plaintiff first started using its canal. In his brief filed in this court defendant correctly states that, giving plaintiff every benefit of the doubt, it first began pumping water through the canal for the 1969 season on May 12, 1969.

The disturbance of possession at issue occurred on or about March 20, 1970. At that time, the defendant cut the levee of plaintiff’s canal on the Bernard Regan tract and began pumping water from defendant’s well into plaintiff’s canal. Defendant used the canal to irrigate his own property in Section 21 and the Casper Trumps property in Section 22, which was being farmed that year by Calvin Sensat. On May 22, 1970, plaintiff filed a previous suit to enjoin defendant from using that portion of its canal on the Bernard Regan tract. After that suit was filed, defendant stopped using the portion of plaintiff’s canal on the Regan property. However, defendant continued to use the remainder of the canal and the present suit was filed on June 4, 1970, to enjoin defendant from using any portion of the canal in question, shown on the attached plat from A to B. A temporary restraining order was issued on the date the suit was filed and pursuant to that order defendant terminated his use of the canal. A preliminary injunction was issued on October 23, 1970.

The injunction was granted under LSA-C.C.P. Article 3663 which reads as follows :

“Sequestration of immovable property or of a real right involved in a possessory or petitory action during the pendency thereof is available under the applicable provisions of Chapter 1 of Title I of Book VII.
“Injunctive relief, under the applicable provisions of Chapter 2 of Title I of Book VII, to protect or restore possession of immovable property or of a real right, is available to:
“(1) A plaintiff in a possessory action, during the pendency thereof; and
“(2) A person who is disturbed in the possession which he and his ancestors in title have had for more than a year of immovable property or of a real right of which he claims the ownership, the possession, or the enjoyment.”

The Official Revision Comment under Article 3663 states:

“(a) This article makes no change in the law.
“(b) Injunctive relief is made available in two separate and distinct types of cases: (1) as an ancillary remedy in a possessory action; and (2) as the relief to be granted in an injunction suit brought to enjoin trespassers and other disturbers, and which is neither a posses-sory nor a petitory action. See Churchill Farms v. Gaudet, 184 La. 984, 168 So. 123 (1936).”

The possession referred to in Article 3663 is described in LSA-C.C.P. Article 3660 as follows:

“A person is in possession of immovable property or of a real right, within the intendment of the articles of this Chapter, when he has the corporeal possession thereof, or civil possession thereof preceded by corporeal possession by him or his ancestors in title, and possesses for himself, whether in good or bad faith, or even as a usurper.”

LSA-C.C. Articles 3426-3431 set forth general principles of corporeal and civil possession and then Article 3432 states :

“Possession applies properly only to corporeal things, movable or immovable.
[154]

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Bluebook (online)
252 So. 2d 151, 1971 La. App. LEXIS 5669, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/louisiana-irrigation-mill-co-v-pousson-lactapp-1971.