California Orange Co. v. Riverside Portland Cement Co.

This is an action at law to recover damages for injuries to plaintiff’s orange orchard, caused by the deposit on the trees of cement dust from defendant’s cement-mill. Plaintiff recovered judgment for a total of $6,300, of which $3,500 was for loss and injury to the crops for the years 1910, 1911, and 1912; $300 was for the increased labor and cost in the care of the trees, and the balance, $2,500, was for injury to the trees. From that judgment defendant appeals.

The orange orchard is located on a piece of high bench land situated on the northerly bank of the Santa Ana River, in Riverside County. It lies about midway between defendant’s cement-mill and the cement-mills of the California Portland Cement Company. Defendant’s mill is about one and a half miles southwesterly of plaintiff’s grove. The two mills of the California Portland Cement Company are northwesterly of the grove and distant therefrom about one and one-half miles. There is no question but that cement in considerable quantities from the mills of the California Portland Cement Company, as well as from defendant’s mill, settled upon plaintiff’s orange trees, coating the leaves with a white, ashen dust, which,…