Title: Maciejko v. Lunenburg Fire District No. 2

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

Maciejko v. Lunenburg Fire District No. 2  (98-385); 171 Vt. 542; 758 A.2d 811

[Filed 21-Aug-2000]

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                       SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 98-385

                              APRIL TERM, 1999

Lunenburg Fire District No. 2	       }	APPEALED FROM:
                                       }
     v.	                               }	Essex Superior Court
                                       }
John and Suzanne Maciejko	       }	DOCKET NO. 9-3-98Excv     

                                                Trial Judge: Merideth Wright                  
 	
             In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       Plaintiffs John and Suzanne Maciejko sued defendant Lunenburg Fire
  District No. 2 (the  district) for damages that resulted when water backed
  up into the basement of the apartment they  were renting from Keith
  Desrochers (landlord).  The small claims court concluded that the district 
  was liable for failing to properly maintain its sewer system.  The superior
  court disagreed but  nonetheless affirmed, holding that the district was
  liable for failing to enforce its sewage ordinance  against landlord.  We
  reverse.  

       The small claims court found the following facts which, on appeal, are
  not in dispute.   Plaintiffs rent half of a duplex house, and Barbara
  Walker rents the other half.  The basement is  separated by a partition.  A
  drainage system, located in the basement floor, drains water from 
  plaintiffs' side into Walker's side; a removable cap covers the drain on
  Walker's side.  The system is  connected by a service line to the municipal
  sewage system's sewer main.  The district operates the  municipal sewage
  system, but has no plan or policy regarding maintenance of the system.  The 
  system was likely installed in the 1930s, and the connections of the
  individual service lines to the  main are precarious.

       On Christmas morning 1996, plaintiffs discovered approximately four
  feet of water and  sewage in their basement.  Plaintiffs called landlord,
  who lives next door to them.  Landlord called  Calvin Colby, a member of
  the district's Prudential Committee.  Colby went to the duplex and spent 
  approximately four hours pumping the water and sewage out of the basement. 
  He also discovered an  obstruction in the sewer main directly in front of
  landlord's house.  The district flushed out the line  and removed the
  obstruction.  Neither Colby nor the district ever determined what the
  obstruction  was composed of.  The small claims court made no finding as to
  how long the obstruction had been  in the sewer main.

 

       The district had no actual knowledge of either the obstruction in the
  sewer main or the  backup in plaintiffs' basement until landlord called
  Colby on December 25, 1996.  Approximately  five years earlier, in a
  similar incident, sewage and water backed up into the basement of the
  duplex. 
 
       At the hearing before the small claims court, Mr. Maciejko testified
  that, when he discovered  the flood, the removable cap was not on the
  drain.  Based on this testimony, the small claims court  concluded that
  landlord had a practice of discharging water into the sewer through the
  drain on  Walker's side of the basement, in violation of a sewage ordinance
  that the district adopted pursuant to  24 V.S.A. § 3617.

       Plaintiffs sued the district in small claims court, seeking to recover
  damages they sustained as  a result of the flooding.  The court concluded
  that the district was negligent because:  (1) it had a  duty to properly
  maintain the sewer system; (2) in not having a maintenance plan or policy,
  the  district breached that duty, particularly given the age and condition
  of the system; (3) that breach was  the proximate cause of the flooding in
  plaintiffs' basement; and (4) plaintiffs sustained damages as a  result of
  the flooding.  The court entered a $680.00 judgment against the district.
	
       The district appealed to the superior court.  The court held that
  there was insufficient  evidence to support the conclusion that the
  district's lack of a maintenance plan was the proximate  cause of the
  backup.  However, the court affirmed on other grounds.  According to the
  court:  (1)  landlord was required, under the district's sewage ordinance,
  to cap the drain on Walker's side of the  basement with cement; (2)
  landlord "had been warned in a similar incident five years previously to 
  cement the basement plug in this house;  (FN1) . . . he had not done so;
  and . . . [the district] had  taken no steps to enforce the ordinance to
  require him to do so;" and (3) if landlord had cemented the  drain plug,
  "the sewer backup would not have occurred, despite the blockage in the
  line."  Thus, the  court held that the district was liable to plaintiffs
  because, had the district enforced its ordinance  against landlord, the
  backup would not have occurred.

       On appeal, the parties do not challenge the lower courts' findings of
  fact. (FN2)  Thus, we  review only the lower courts' conclusions of law,
  and our review is "nondeferential and plenary."   N.A.S. Holdings, Inc. v.
  Pafundi, ___ Vt. ___, ___,