Case ID: ny-st-rep_37/html/0714-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dykman, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Frederick W. Davis et al., Resp’ts, v. George W. Evans, App’lt.
    
      (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,
    
    
      Filed February 9, 1891.)
    
    Adjoining owners—Improper use op land.
    Defendants piled a quantity of sand against plaintiff’s brick wall, which afterwards fell, and no other adequate cause was assigned for such fall except the presence of the sand. Held, that the use of his premises by defendant in such manner as to injure plaintiffs property was wrongful and rendered him liable for the resultant damage.
    Appeal from judgment of the county court in favor of plaintiffs, entered upon the verdict of a jury for $248.
    The action was brought in a justice’s court where defendant recovered judgment, but upon a new trial in county court the judgment appealed from was rendered.
    The plaintiffs were the lessees of premises on Eutledge street, in the city of Brooklyn, used and occupied by them as an iron foundry. The defendant was the lessee of the premises adjoining said foundry, which he used as a storage yard for gravel and other materials used in his business as gravel roofer.
    Defendant piled up against plaintiffs’ brick wall a heap of gravel forty-six feet long, fifteen high and twenty-five wide.
    On the 13th day of December, 1887, the wall of plaintiffs’ foundry gave away under the great pressure and weight of this gravel, and fell in on plaintiffs’ premises, destroying their tools,' implements, machinery and goods to the damage of $250.
    The wall was a solid, strong briclc wall twelve inches thick with sixteen inch buttresses at short intervals.
    Defendant claimed that the fall was caused by the weight of a gallery erected by plaintiffs on their side of the wall on which were stored the moulds used in their business.
    
      J. Stewart Ross, for app’lt; Alexander McKinny (Sidney V. Lowell, of counsel), for resp’ts.
   Dykman, J.

There was no defense to this action and there is no merit in the appeal from the judgment. The defendant piled a quantity of sand against the brick wall of the plaintiff’s building, and the pressure was sufficient to push in the wall. The fact of the breach was undisputed and no adequate cause was assigned therefor except the pressure resulting from the bank of sand, and with the verdict of the jury in favor of the plaintiff we must assume that to have been the cause.

The use by the defendant of his premises in a manner that injured the property of the plaintiff was wrongful and rendered the defendant liable for the damage which resulted from such use.

The judgment and order should be affirmed, with costs.

Barnard, P. J., and Pratt, J., concur.