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Stevens v. 396 Investment Co.5/17/2005
will support the findings. [Citation.] This court is without power to substitute its deductions for those of the trial court when the trial court could reasonably deduce two or more inferences from the facts. [Citation.] The testimony of a witness, even though a party, may be sufficient to support the trial court. [Citation.]" (Jordan v. City of Santa Barbara (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1245, 1254-1255.)
B. CAUSATION:
(1) In General
Anaheim contends that the court applied the wrong legal standard in determining causation. It explains that the proper legal standard was enunciated in Belair v. Riverside County Flood Control Dist. (1988) 47 Cal.3d 550, 559, as follows: " n order to establish a causal connection between the public improvement and the plaintiff's damages, there must be a showing of `"a substantial cause-and-effect relationship excluding the probability that other forces alone produced the injury." [Citations.]' [Citation.]" 396 agrees that this is the correct standard.
According to Anaheim, a correct application of the standard shows that the judgment must be reversed. It cites Souza v. Silver Development Co. (1985) 164 Cal.App.3d 165 as support for its position. In Souza, creekside property owners sued the City of Pinole and the developers of their property after their property was damaged in a landslide. The trial court found, inter alia, that the landslide was a result of erosion along the creek, and the creek was part of the city storm drain system. It entered judgment against the city. (Id. at pp. 167-169.) The appellate court reversed the portion of the judgment against the city on inverse condemnation. (Id. at p. 173.)
The appellate court stated: "The use of the public improvement need not be the sole cause of the injury; a public entity may be liable even if its project was only one of several `substantial' concurring causes of the damage. [Citations.] Nevertheless, there must be a showing of `a substantial cause-and-effect relationship excluding the probability that other forces alone produced the injury.' [Citations.]" (Souza v. Silver Development Co., supra, 164 Cal.App.3d at p. 171, fn. omitted.) The appellate court further stated that the undisputed evidence showed that "the City's storm drainage system added only `a minimal amount' of water to the creek. Moreover, there was no evidence that this minimal addition caused the erosion which led to the landslide. On the contrary, the evidence was undisputed that the erosion which occurred was a natural phenomenon in all meandering creeks . . . . In other words, there was no showing excluding the probability that the natural flow of the creek alone caused the damage. Plaintiffs cite no case in which a public entity has been held liable in inverse condemnation even though its public improvement had no effect on the flow of water in a natural watercourse. . . . Accordingly, on this record, we can only conclude that the evidence does not establish that the City's drainage system was a proximate cause of plaintiffs' damage . . . ." (Id. at p. 172, fn. omitted.)
We do not see this case as supporting Anaheim's position. In the case before us, the record is replete with testimony to the effect that the reservoir leaked 65 gallons per minute, or 34 million gallons of water per year. We can hardly come to the conclusion that the reservoir leakage "added only `a minimal amount' of water" (Souza v. Silver Development Co., supra, 164 Cal.App.3d at p. 172) to the flow in the vicinity of the landslide. Moreover, in the case before us, we have no undisputed testimony to the effect that the landslide was a natural phenomenon common to all comparable hillsides. While one expert, Bruce Clark, did
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