How have courts treated the issue of water escaping from the confinement of a natural watercourse?
California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Lukrich v. Rodgers, 1 Cal.Rptr. 30, 176 Cal.App.2d 1 (Cal. App. 1959):
None of these cases is in point. Everett v. Davis, supra, 18 Cal.2d 389, 115 P.2d 821, held that the waters there under consideration were not flood waters because the element of abnormality of escape from a stream was not present. Here we have that element of abnormality present.
[176 Cal.App.2d 9] In Thomson v. La Fetra, supra, 180 Cal. 771, 183 P. 152, the court pointed out that the waters there involved were not flood waters for the reason that they did not escape because of their height from the confinement of a stream. In the instant case the waters did as a result of extraordinarily heavy rains escape from the confinement of a stream.
In Costello v. Bowen, supra, 80 Cal.App.2d 621, 182 P.2d 615, the defendants were enjoined from maintaining a dam across a natural watercourse. That case was not concerned with water escaping from a break in the levee of a natural watercourse.
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