Strother v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

211 P.2d 624, 94 Cal. App. 2d 525, 1949 Cal. App. LEXIS 1567
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 7, 1949
DocketCiv. No. 7608; Civ. No. 7609
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 211 P.2d 624 (Strother v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Strother v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., 211 P.2d 624, 94 Cal. App. 2d 525, 1949 Cal. App. LEXIS 1567 (Cal. Ct. App. 1949).

Opinion

THOMPSON, J.

Plaintiffs have appealed from judgments, in two consolidated cases, which were rendered pursuant to orders sustaining general demurrers to the amended complaints with leave to amend the pleadings. The demurrers were sustained on the ground that the complaints fail to state facts sufficient to constitute causes of action. Plaintiffs refused to again amend their complaints and the actions were dismissed. The suits were brought to recover compensation for personal injuries, and for the death of a passenger and for property damages resulting from the collision of an airplane with high power wires maintained by the defendant Pacific Gas and Electric Company on its own property adjacent to Patrick Air Field near Chico.

Each complaint is couched in six counts. The first complaint was filed by Dolly Elma Strother, the surviving wife of William Alexis Strother, a passenger in the airplane, who was killed, and the children of the spouses. The other complaint was filed by Clifford L. Strother, the operator of the private airplane which was involved in the accident. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company is charged with negligence in constructing and maintaining on its property near the airport the poles and high power wires, contrary to the rules of the United States Civil Aeronautics Administration, and in failing to display signs or to give warning of the danger of [528]*528said wires. The codefendant, Garrison Patrick, individually, as manager and operator of Patrick Air Field, and as executor of the estate of Bee Compton, deceased, owner of the airfield, is likewise charged with negligence in failing to display signs or to warn plaintiffs or the patrons of the airport of the danger of said wires and poles.

The complaints allege that for more than 17 years Patrick Air Field has maintained its airfield in the vicinity of Chico 500 feet in width and 3,400 feet in length and extending southerly from a line parallel to Hagan Lane which is 45 feet north of the northern boundary of said airfield; that during all of said time that airport has been commonly used by public and private airplanes as a landing field; that nine years subsequent to the establishment of said airport the defendant Pacific Gas and Electric Company constructed upon its easement and thereafter maintained a high power system of electric wires and poles, parallel to the northern border of the field and about 40 feet distant therefrom, consisting of “two wooden poles approximately 500 feet apart,” upon which “Three electric high-tension wires” were strung “26 feet above the ground”; that both of said defendants knew of the dangerous proximity of said wires to the landing field, and that plaintiff, Clifford L. Strother, and other operators of airplanes were accustomed, for more than nine years, to fly in the airlane above the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s property in landing and departing from said field; that defendants failed and neglected to display signs or to use “safety measures of any kind” or to warn plaintiffs of said danger; that the Patrick Air Field and the public acquired prescriptive rights to the airlane over the adjoining property of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. It was further alleged that plaintiff, Clifford L. Strother, who was operating his private airplane in which his father, William Alexis Strother, was riding as a passenger, in attempting to land, from a northerly direction in said airlane, at about 3 o’clock p. m. of April 23, 1946, collided with said high power wires and crashed on the airfield as a result of which his father was killed, he was seriously injured, and his airplane was demolished. It was not alleged that the operator of the airplane was free from negligence, or that he had no knowledge of the presence of the wires.

The complaints fail to state facts sufficient to constitute causes of action based on prescriptive title to the airlane above the land of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which [529]*529space was beneficially used and occupied by the wires and poles of that public utility company. At the time of the accident plaintiff’s airplane was trespassing on the property of the said defendant. The defendants owed no duty toward plaintiffs to display signs or to warn them of the danger, of the wires and poles which were erected and maintained on private property, other than that of the airport. Nor may the appellants assert prescriptive rights to the airlane across which the high power wires were strung and maintained, for that space to an elevation of 26 feet above the ground was reasonably and beneficially used for the enjoyment of that owner’s property rights, and the plaintiffs were trespassers thereon at the time of the accident. Being trespassers, the owner of the land owed plaintiffs no duty to warn them of the hazard of the wires. (Leslie v. City of Monterey, 139 Cal.App. 715 [34 P.2d 837] ; Rochester G. & E. Corp. v. Dunlop, 148 Misc. 849 [266 N.Y.S. 469] ; Capitol Airways, Inc. v. Indianapolis Power & Light Co., 215 Ind. 462 [18 N.E.2d 776] ; Langazo v. San Joaquin L. & P. Corp., 32 Cal.App.2d 678, 689 [90 P.2d 825].) In the case last cited this court said:

“ ‘ “. . . A landowner may, in fact, reasonably anticipate an invasion of his property, but in law he is entitled to assume that he will not be interfered with. His right to protect his property and the use of his property is paramount. . . . The exemption of the landowner from liability as to trespassers ... is necessary to secure him the beneficial use of his land; . . ..” ’ ”

It appears from the pleadings that even though prescriptive rights to the airlane over the property of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company may have been acquired by adverse user of the space occupied by the wires, which is .unnecessary for us to determine, that right of way was subsequently abandoned and lost by the construction and use by the owner of the wires and poles on its own land without opposition or interference for a period of more than five years. When the claimant to the adverse use of a right of way ceases to use it or abandons his claim of right, and the owner of the land to which it is incident occupies and uses it without objection for a period of five years or more, thé effect of such discontinuance of use is just as conclusive against the adverse title thereto as though the claimant had been evicted by legal process. The owner’s possession and title to the easement is thereby restored. (Civ. Code, § 811, subd. 3 and 4; Glatts v. Henson, [530]*53031 Cal.2d 368 [188 P.2d 745] ; 2 C.J.S. § 146, p. 708; 17 Am.Jur. § 143, p. 1028.) Section 811 of the Civil Code provides in part:

“A servitude is extinguished:

“ (3) By the performance of any act upon either tenement, by the owner of the servitude, or with his assent, which is incompatible with its nature or exercise; or,
“ (4) When the servitude was acquired by enjoyment, by disuse thereof by the owner of the servitude for the period prescribed for acquiring title by enjoyment. ’ ’

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Bluebook (online)
211 P.2d 624, 94 Cal. App. 2d 525, 1949 Cal. App. LEXIS 1567, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/strother-v-pacific-gas-electric-co-calctapp-1949.