Nahl

In the month of March, 1911, the plaintiff’s land, embracing forty acres and situated in near, proximity to one of the water ditches of the defendant corporation, in Tulare County, this state, was inundated by water, and a large number of eucalyptus trees which he had planted and was cultivating on said land was thereby destroyed. In his complaint, the plaintiff charges that the damage to his land and trees was caused by the inundation of said land from water running in and through the corporation’s ditch, and that said overflowing of said water was entirely and directly due to the inexcusable negligence of the defendant corporation and the members of its board of directors, named above as the other defendants herein. The complaint alleges that the damage thus sustained by the plaintiff amounted in the aggregate to the sum of $4,753.60, for which judgment is prayed.

The answer specifically denies the averments of the complaint, and alleges, by way of a special defense, that the ditch from which the water overflowing the plaintiff’s land is alleged in the complaint to have come has been at all times, prior to the date of said overflow and damage, maintained in perfect condition,…