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Show PRESCRIPTION 357 there been no knowledge or acquiescence on the part of the party against whom the right was claimed, no presumption of a grant against him could arise.490 (2) Acquiescence, while associated with knowledge, is not synonymous with it. An explanation of the distinction is that acquiescence is presumed to result from unexplained failure of the rightful owner to act upon knowledge. In the words of a California district court of appeal:491 I do not understand that the element of "acquiescence" is to be shown independently of knowledge, in the common acceptation of that term; i.e., that an affirmative permission or consent be given in addition to knowledge of the hostile claim of right. If the owner has the knowledge which the law requires shall be imputed to him, and takes no steps to prevent the adverse claimant from his continuous enjoyment of the right claimed by him, such owner will be deemed to have acquiesced in such use. (3) When the other facets of open and notorious use are shown, therefore, acquiescence may be implied;492 and accordingly, the circumstances that impute knowledge will impute acquiescence if the rightful owner fails to object.493 "The rule is well settled that courts of equity do not favor antiquated or stale demands, and will refuse to interfere where there has been * * * long acquienscence in the assertion of adverse rights."494 Illustrative circumstances appear in a California case in which plaintiffs and their predecessors in interest for more than 34 years had diverted and used substantially all the water of a stream under a claim of right, openly, notoriously, and adversely to all downstream claims, and for more than 20 years had paid all taxes assessed against the water used by them, and in which defendant and her grantors-downstream riparian proprietors-had actual knowledge of the diversion and adverse claim and had made but slight use of the land. The upper owners thereby acquired a prescriptive right against the lower owners to the use of the water of the stream.495 (See "Establishment of Prescriptive Title-Adverse Parties-Riparian proprietor," below.) Campbell v. Wyoming Dev. Co., 55 Wyo. 347, 415, 100 Pac. (2d) 124, 102 Pac. (2d) 745 (1940). AW American Co. v. Bradford, 27 Cal. 360, 368 (1865). *91Silva v. Hawn, 10 Cal. App. 544, 552, 102 Pac. 952 (1909). 49iOregon Land & Constr. Co. v. Allen Ditch Co., 41 Oreg. 209, 216, 69 Pac. 455 (1902); Downie v. Renton, 167 Wash. 374, 377-378, 9 Pac. (2d) 372 (1932). A93Ei>ans Ditch Co. v. Lakeside Ditch Co., 13 Cal. App. 119, 129, 108 Pac. 1027 (1910). 49*J6hnson v. Strong Arm Res. In. Dist., 82 Idaho 478, 487, 356 Pac. (2d) 67 (1960); accord, Greeley & Loveland In. Co. v. McCloughan, 140 Colo. 173, 342 Pac. (2d) 1045, 1049 (1959). "'Morgan v. Walker, 217 Cal. 607, 616-617, 20 Pac. (2d) 660 (1933). "Having stood by for all these years and without protest or objection having acquiesced in the use of practically the entire flow of the stream by respondents during the irrigating season, the defendant must be held to have lost any right to the waters of said stream inconsistent |