Manning v. Hall

• Decision Date: 08 April 1959
• Docket Number: No. 840,840
• Citation: 110 So.2d 424
• Parties: George W. MANNING and his wife, Inez C. Manning, Appellants, v. A. L. HALL and his wife, Helen Hall, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 424

110 So.2d 424

George W. MANNING and his wife, Inez C. Manning, Appellants, v. A. L. HALL and his wife, Helen Hall, Appellees.

No. 840.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

April 8, 1959.

M. R. McDonald, Sebring, for appellants.

R. P. Dunty, Jr., Lake Placid, for appellees.

TERRY B. PATTERSON, Associate Judge.

This is an appeal from a final decree granting a permanent injunction the effect of which is to allow the appellees, the plaintiffs below, the right to maintain a drainage ditch across appellants' lands.

Appellants have, since 1926 owned the east half of the east half of Section 35, Township 37 South, Range 30 East. Their property is bounded on the south and east by public highways and drainage ditches. In June of 1951 appellants sold to appellees the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of said Section 35, the forty acres sold to appellees being thus an interior tract with reference to the highways and drainage ditches. The lands involved are low muck lands requiring drainage facilities to accommodate them to agricultural purposes. At the time of the purchase by appellees, a private road and ditch extended northward from the public road and ditch along the south of appellants' land to the approximate vicinity of the south east corner of appellees' property. Otherwise the evidence shows and the Chancellor found, that the natural drainage of the area was from west to east so that appellees' tract depended upon drainage eastward across appellants' lands to the highway ditch bordering appellants' lands on the east.

Shortly after the sale of the mentioned tract to appellees, appellant Manning constructed a road and ditch running north and south along the joint boundary of the lands of the parties, that is, along the eastern boundary of appellees' forty acres and constructed a connecting drainage ditch eastward from the southeast corner of appellees' tract to the public ditch bordering appellants' lands on the east. The evidence is in conflict on the question whether this drainage system was constructed as part of the consideration for sale. It is nevertheless undisputed that the road and ditch occupied a portion of appellees' tract and thereafter, for many years the appellees' tract did in fact drain through this system southward thence eastward across appellants' property, and the ditches were maintained at the joint expense of the parties.

The controversy giving rise to this litigation arose when, after some five years, the appellant Manning refused to appellee Hall the permission to clean out the ditch running eastward across the Manning property, resulting in a serious threat of flooding appellees' lands and destruction of a crop of caladium bulbs.

A temporary injunction was granted preventing Manning from interfering with or preventing Hall's right to go upon Manning's land and keep the drainage ditch open to the eastward. The injunction was made permanent in the final decree which found and decreed that Hall had acquired a permanent drainage easement in the controverted drainage ditch.

The Chancellor heard voluminous evidence of the parties, much of it in sharp conflict, particularly with respect to whether the system of drainage was contemplated by the parties and entered into the consideration of the sale, and whether appellees' tract could be conveniently drained to the southward through the pre-existing ditch. The Chancellor nevertheless resolved the conflicts and made findings in his final decree as follows:

'I. That the road, as constructed by the defendants, according to their testimony in this case, along the East boundary of the northwest quarter (NW1/4) of the southeast quarter (SE1/4) of Section 35, does impede the natural flow of the water so as to measurably increase the water on the plaintiffs' land.

'II. At the time of the sale by the defendants to plaintiffs the natural drainage of the water over and across the lands in question was from the west to the east, or southeast;

'III. That there was a plat recorded on September 29, 1924, in Plat Book 1, Page 42, a plat showing the existence and easements for roads and ditches, and while certain attempts were made to vacate the plat, the defendants did actually utilize said road easements along the western boundary of their property, that they did utilize the easement along the east boundary of the plaintiffs' property for the purposes of road construction and resulting ditch. That they did further ratify and acknowledge the existence of the recorded plat by constructing the ditches in question, both on the defendants' land and the plaintiffs' land, providing for the drainages outlined therein.

'IV. That there is an easement by implication, that there was clearly unit of title between the dominant and servant estates, and that while some dispute as to the exact location of the drain, the drain was apparent, has been in continuous use, and is of a permanent nature, and that it has clearly been established that in view of the circumstances existing at...