Lee v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

The defendant has appealed from a decree which was rendered against it quieting title in the plaintiffs to ten miner’s inches of water to be taken from a reservoir constructed on land conveyed by the plaintiffs’ predecessor in title to the defendant’s predecessor in title by a deed reserving to “said grantor and his assigns” perpetual use of ten miner’s inches of water therefrom “free of charge”. The decree also authorizes the plaintiffs at their own expense to reconstruct or repair the reservoir, removing all silt and debris therefrom so as to* enable them to secure therefrom the allotted quantity of water.

The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs became the owners of and entitled to ten miner’s inches of water to be taken from the reservoir which was constructed on the premises of the defendant, as grantee by mesne conveyance from Allen Towle, the former owner of a tract of land in Placer County, a portion of which land he conveyed to South Tuba Canal Company, the predecessor in interest thereto of the defendant; that this deed expressly reserves to the grantor and his successors in interest said quantity of water which is supplied to the reservoir from springs thereon. In…