What is the test for determining whether a homeowner is liable for damages caused by the construction of a flood control project?

"As the Albers opinion carefully made clear, its general rule of compensability did not derive from statutory or common law tort doctrine, but instead rested on the construction, as a matter of interpretation and policy ( [Albers, supra, ] 62 Cal.2d at p. 262 [42 Cal.Rptr. 89, 398 P.2d 129] ), of our constitutional provision. The relevant policy basis of article I, section 14 [now section 19], was succinctly defined in Clement v. State Reclamation Board (1950) 35 Cal.2d 628, 642 [220 P.2d 897]...: The decisive consideration is whether the owner of the damaged property if uncompensated would contribute more than his proper share to the public undertaking. In other words, the underlying purpose of our constitutional provision in inverseas well as ordinarycondemnation is to distribute throughout the community the loss inflicted upon the individual by the making of public improvements' [citation]: to socialize the burden ...to afford relief to the landowner in cases in which it is unfair to ask him to bear a burden that should be assumed by society [citation]." (Holtz v. Superior Court (1970) 3 Cal.3d 296, 303, 90 Cal.Rptr. 345, 475 P.2d 441.)

An exception to this rule of strict liability exists for most flood control improvements.

[198 Cal.Rptr.3d 98]