## Facts

- A mother owned two adjacent parcels later intended to pass to her sons: a larger parcel with the family home (later owned by Wayne) and a smaller parcel with a separate home (later owned by Alan).
- During the mother’s unified ownership, multiple wells served the properties, including a 1980 well drilled primarily to provide reliable water for the larger parcel.
- The 1980 well was on the larger parcel, while the housing and electronic controls for that well system were located on the smaller parcel.
- Before the parcels were separately owned, the properties’ water arrangements functioned as a shared system, with occasional cross-use of wells.
- The mother later placed both parcels in a living trust and separately wrote that wells on the larger parcel were intended for emergency purposes to serve the home on the larger parcel.
- After the mother’s death and distribution of the parcels (Wayne receiving the larger parcel and Alan the smaller), Alan altered the 1980 well system without Wayne’s permission, including removing a faucet and diverting water into a large storage tank serving Alan’s parcel.
- Wayne and his spouse claimed the alterations left the larger parcel receiving only small amounts of water and that Alan interfered with efforts to diagnose and repair the system.
- Wayne and his spouse sued for quiet title, declaratory and injunctive relief, and trespass damages related to the well system modifications.

## Issues

1. Whether an implied easement arose benefiting the smaller parcel for use of water from the 1980 well located on the larger parcel.
2. If an implied easement existed, whether it could be defined to allow Alan effectively exclusive or unrestricted use of the 1980 well’s water to the detriment of the larger parcel.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the finding that an implied easement existed allowing the smaller parcel to use water from the 1980 well.
- The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment insofar as it granted the smaller parcel exclusive or unrestricted use of water from the 1980 well.
- The case was remanded for the trial court to redefine the easement’s scope consistent with reasonable, nonexclusive use.

## Legal Principles

- An implied easement may arise upon severance of commonly owned property when a pre-severance use was apparent, continuous, and reasonably necessary to the enjoyment of the benefited parcel at the time of severance.
- The scope of an implied easement is limited by the circumstances and reasonable necessity existing at severance; it is not expanded to grant dominion beyond the historically established and reasonably required use.
- Easement law requires balancing the dominant estate’s use against the servient estate’s right to continue reasonable use of its own property; an implied easement should not be construed to effectively deprive the servient estate of essential use of the affected resource.

## Conclusion

The court recognized an implied easement for the smaller parcel to use water from the shared well system but limited the easement to reasonable, nonexclusive use so that the larger parcel retains meaningful access to water, and it ordered the trial court to revise the judgment accordingly.


Thorstrom v. Thorstrom, 196 Cal. App. 4th 1406 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011)