Placer County Water Agency v. Smurro CA3

BACKGROUND

As alleged in the Agency’s complaint, it owns the Ben Franklin Canal and wants to replace and relocate the canal’s underground pipeline on the Smurro property. The complaint alleges that a June 23, 1937 grant of easement from Nellie Hall to the Agency’s predecessor in interest PG&E (the Hall-PG&E easement) gives the Agency the right to relocate the pipeline on the Smurro property. Defendants deny that the Agency may relocate the pipeline. The Agency filed a motion for summary adjudication, submitting evidence that on June 23, 1937, Nellie Dot Hall granted PG&E and its successors and assigns, in the Hall- PG&E easement,

“the right (a) to maintain, and use, for conveying water, that certain aqueduct commonly known as the Ben Franklin Canal where the same traverses [the real property owned by Nellie Dot Hall], (b) to select a new location on said premises for said aqueduct or portions thereof in lieu of the existing location of the same, and, when and as often as it may elect, to reconstruct, and/or change the type, and/or dimensions, of said aqueduct, either in its present location or in such new location, and (c) of ingress to and egress from said aqueduct across said…