## Facts

- The City of Pasadena operated a water distribution system and held recorded five-foot-wide easements across parcels in an unincorporated area for “installing and maintaining water mains and connections thereto.”
- The easement deeds did not state that Pasadena’s rights were exclusive or that additional water lines were prohibited within the same strips.
- California-Michigan Land & Water Company, a competing water provider, obtained permission from the servient landowners to install water mains and service connections within certain strips already burdened by Pasadena’s easements and partly occupied by Pasadena’s lines.
- Pasadena sued for an injunction requiring removal of California-Michigan’s installations and for damages, asserting the later installations interfered with its current use and with its claimed right to fully occupy the five-foot strips in the future.
- After a bench trial with conflicting evidence, the trial court found no unreasonable or substantial interference with Pasadena’s present installations and no sufficient showing that Pasadena’s reasonable future use would be prevented; it entered judgment for California-Michigan.

## Issues

1. Whether a prior utility easement for water mains and connections, absent express exclusivity, gives the holder a legal right to prevent the servient owner from granting a similar easement to another water company within the same five-foot strip.
2. Whether substantial evidence supported the trial court’s finding that California-Michigan’s installations did not unreasonably interfere with Pasadena’s easement rights.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for California-Michigan.
- The court held that Pasadena’s easements were not exclusive because the grants lacked clear, convincing indicia of exclusivity.
- The servient owners could grant additional easements in the same area if the later use did not unreasonably interfere with the prior easement’s use.
- Unreasonable interference was treated as a fact question, and the trial court’s finding of no unreasonable interference was supported by substantial evidence.

## Legal Principles

- An easement grant for a stated purpose ordinarily confers a nonpossessory right of use, not exclusive control of the burdened strip.
- Exclusivity will not be implied from general purpose language; an exclusive easement requires clear and convincing evidence of intent.
- The servient owner may continue to use the land and may convey additional easements, provided such uses do not unreasonably interfere with the prior easement holder’s rights.
- Claims of interference must be evaluated based on actual conditions and reasonable future needs; a speculative possibility of maximal future occupation by the first easement holder does not, by itself, bar later easements.
- Appellate review defers to trial court findings on interference when supported by substantial evidence.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a per se rule that a first-in-time, purpose-limited utility easement excludes later similar easements, holding instead that concurrent easements are permissible absent clear exclusivity and so long as the later easement does not unreasonably interfere with the earlier easement’s use.


City of Pasadena v. California-Michigan Land & Water Co., 17 Cal. 2d 576, 110 P.2d 983 (Cal. 1941)