Bensley v. Mountain Lake Water Co.

Citations

• 13 Cal. 306

Syllabus

<p>Wheee a hill avers that plaintiffs are the owners, and in possession of a tract of land, that defendants are Insolvent and threaten to, and will, enter upon said land, and, by excavations, embankments, and diverting valuable springs and streams thereon, despoil it of the substance of the inheritance, and create a cloud upon plaintiffs’ title, injunction lies.</p> <p>Before private property, condemned for public use, can be taken from the owner, just compensation must he paid or secured to him.</p> <p>A party, after procuring an order for the condemnation of property to public use, cannot lay by for four years without complying at all with those requirements of the proceeding which arc of service to the owner, and then without notice, give efi'eet to the previous and initiatory acts, through which he deraigns his title.</p> <p>He who relics for title upon an extraordinary mode of acquisition given him, not by the will of the owner, expressed or implied, but against his will and by the mandate of the law, must show strict compliance with those statutory rules from which his title accrues.</p> <p>No title, nor any right of possession, comes from the mere condemnation of private property for public use. Just compensation actually made, or secured according to law, is a condition precedent.</p> <p>And such compensation must be made within a short period, or the privilege of talcing the property under the condemnation will be deemed abandoned.</p> <p>A iona fide purchaser of land, without notice of proceedings pending for its condemnation, at the time of purchase, no notice of lis pendens being filed, is not affected by the proceedings.</p>