Sorg

Defendant appeals from a judgment awarding plaintiff an amount which the court concluded was due under a contract. The facts were stipulated and are set forth below.

G. M. Russell and Catherine S. Russell are the owners of a 40-acre parcel of land in Los Angeles, California, one acre of which is leased to Paul R. McClintock. On December 26 and 27, 1967, pursuant to a purported authorization obtained from McClintock, defendant dumped approximately 15 truckloads of asphalt, concrete, and other waste material on the Russell property. The authorization in fact related only to the McClintock leasehold, 200 feet distant from the closest portion of the deposited material.

Between December 26, 1967, and February 9, 1968, the Russells informed defendant that this dumping was improper and requested removal of the waste material. On February 12 defendant received the following letter from the Russells’ attorneys:

Defendant did not reply to this letter until two weeks later, when in a letter dated February 26, 1968, an attorney representing defendant asserted that the dumping had been done with the permission of P. R. McClintock who (the letter stated) was then “the person in…