Keck

This is an appeal from a judgment condemning the fee title to certain real property. Plaintiffs are the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water and Power, and defendants are the owners of 640 acres of agricultural land situate outside the territorial limits of plaintiff city, being in the County of Kern.

In 1950 plaintiffs brought an action in the Superior Court of Kern County to obtain a permanent easement across defendants’ property for the purpose of constructing and maintaining electrical transmission lines. Subsequently, the then owners of the property conveyed to plaintiffs an easement over a strip of property sometimes called “Parcel 104.” This strip is 250 feet wide, runs diagonally across the 640-acre parcel, and contains 17.34 acres. The easement so obtained contains broad grants of rights in connection with the construction, maintenance and operation of one or more electrical transmission lines.

In 1952, plaintiffs constructed an electrical transmission line across the subject property within the easement right of way. They now are constructing an additional line within this area; this additional line was contemplated at the time they obtained the…