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Wong v. 396 Investment Co.5/17/2005
the requisite language to support a complaint seeking damages for mental anguish. (Id. at pp. 334, 338.) In that case, the claims described the injuries as "`the diminution of the value of [their] real property, the decreased marketability of [their] property due to the damage to the reputation for safety in the area in which [their] property is located, reduced access to [their] property resulting from the . . . slide, and the loss of use of [their] property during the excavation after the . . . slide.'" (Id. at pp. 335-336.) The claims asserted damages "for the `diminished value of the property . . . .'" (Id. at p. 336.) It is clear from this language that the claims at issue framed only real property losses. Nowhere did the claims assert any personal injury of any kind.
In the case before us, however, the claims each mentioned personal injury . Each claim described part of the injury as: "Imminent danger of complete loss of the property as well as death or injury to Claimants, their families, their guests, and/or anyone else present on their property at the time of failure, due to imminent danger of catastrophic slope failure and/or associated failure of the reservoir." While it is true that the language does not specifically mention emotional distress as a form of personal injury and the language can be construed as applying only to personal injury arising in connection with the catastrophic failure of either the slope or the reservoir, we see no reason to construe the language so narrowly. The language served to put Anaheim on notice that the claimants were seeking personal injury damages associated with the danger of the failure of either the slope or the reservoir. One may reasonably infer that property owners living in fear of that danger may suffer personal injuries that include emotional distress damages.
The court did not err in awarding emotional distress damages to Matthew Biazevich, Michael Marion, Patricia Robinson and Alexis Wei.
F. ESTOPPEL BY DEED
(1) Introduction
Anaheim complains that the court erred in rejecting its defense of estoppel by deed. Anaheim argues that the plaintiffs' claims are barred by the doctrine of estoppel by deed because it has shown that: (1) when it acquired the reservoir site, the seller of the property continued to own the adjoining property on which the slope later failed; (2) the seller was aware of Anaheim's intended use of the property as a reservoir site; and (3) at the time Anaheim acquired the reservoir site, seepage from the future reservoir was reasonably foreseeable. We will address each of these three points in turn.
(2) Concurrent Ownership of Reservoir Site and Damaged Property
First, the record does reflect that the seller of the property, the Santiago Land Co., owned both the reservoir site and adjoining property. It also reflects that the Santiago Land Co. sold certain of the adjoining property to Caltrans and that the property was later resold and changed hands a number of times. Ultimately, some of that adjoining property became a portion of Tract 10439. Certain of the damaged properties were located in that tract.
However, we observe that it appears a large portion of Tract 10439 was probably never owned by the Santiago Land Co. and we cannot tell from the record whether the properties of all the plaintiffs were located within the portion of Tract 10439 that the Santiago Land Co. once owned. On the other hand, we also observe that 396 does not seem to contest the assertion that the damaged portion of Tract 10439 was at one time owned by the Santiago Land Co. That being the case, we will assume for the purposes of this discussion that Anaheim's first
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