La Fetra v. Richardson

Plaintiff claims that the defendants have greatly injured his orange orchard by wrongfully diverting thereon large quantities of storm water. He seeks an injunction, and prays for damages. Defendants had judgment and plaintiff appeals on the judgment-roll alone.

Plaintiff is the owner of an orange orchard on the southerly slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains. Just north of the land of plaintiff, and- separated therefrom by Ledora Avenue, are the lands of defendants. Located in these mountains is a deep ravine, known as Shorey-Canyon, which, with its many branches, constitutes the natural drainage-way of waters falling in said locality. In the year 1914 defendants constructed in this ravine, on their land, a concrete flume about five and one-half feet in width and about three and one-half feet in depth, with a fall of about ninety feet in a distance of 1,320 feet. Plaintiff "seeks to have this flume • declared a nuisance, and removed, and the ditch in which it is constructed filled to its natural level and grade.

The complaint alleges that prior to the construction of the flume the waters falling from the slopes of the mountains, and naturally draining into Shorey Canyon, flowed…