Hale v. McLea

Decided July 1, 1879

California Supreme Court · decided 1879-07-01

The complaint alleged that for more than seven years the plaintiff had been the owner and in possession of a tract of land situated in Santa Clara County, State of California, now known as Hale’s Branch; that the westerly line of the ranch crosses a high, narrow ridge of land, and just inside the line on the land and on the ridge there had always been, up to October 30th, 1875, a living, flowing, natural spring of water; that the waters that flowed therefrom had always,…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1879-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently January 1961

9 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Rhodes, J., concurring:

¶1I concur in the judgment, on the ground that the defendant, in my opinion, has no right to divert the waters of the subterranean stream, if the spring of the plaintiff will thereby be materially injured.

¶2Mr. Chief Justice Wallace did not express any opinion.