Case Name: Dulcina C. SMITH, Appellant, v. KING'S GRANT CONDOMINIUM, a condominium, Appellee, v. Mary Scott LLOYD, Edward Carey and Alice Carey, James F. Malloy and Lawrence W. Spencer, Additional Appellees
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1994-05-02
Citations: 537 Pa. 51
Docket Number: No. 16 W.D. Appeal Docket 1993
Parties: Dulcina C. SMITH, Appellant, v. KING’S GRANT CONDOMINIUM, a condominium, Appellee, v. Mary Scott LLOYD, Edward Carey and Alice Carey, James F. Malloy and Lawrence W. Spencer, Additional Appellees.
Judges: Before NIX, C.J., and FLAHERTY, ZAPPALA, PAPADAKOS, GAPPY and MONTEMURO, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania State Reports
Volume: 537
Pages: 51–64

Head Matter:
640 A.2d 1276
Dulcina C. SMITH, Appellant, v. KING’S GRANT CONDOMINIUM, a condominium, Appellee, v. Mary Scott LLOYD, Edward Carey and Alice Carey, James F. Malloy and Lawrence W. Spencer, Additional Appellees.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued Sept. 23, 1993.
Decided May 2, 1994.
Henry E. Rea, Jr., Brandt, Milnes, Rea & Wise, Pittsburgh, for appellant.
Jay D. Glasser, Pietragallo, Bosick & Gordon, Pittsburgh, for King’s Grant Condominium.
Warren Ferry, Pittsburgh, for Edward and Alice Carey.
William M. Conwell, Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, Pittsburgh, for Lawrence Spencer.
Robert J. Donahoe, Manifesto & Donahoe, Pittsburgh, for Mary Scott Lloyd.
William D. Anthony, William D. Anthony & Associates, Pittsburgh, for James F. Malloy.
Before NIX, C.J., and FLAHERTY, ZAPPALA, PAPADAKOS, GAPPY and MONTEMURO, JJ.

Opinion:
OPINION OF THE COURT
FLAHERTY, Justice.
Smith sued the condominium association for damages which occurred when a sewer line backed up and caused sewage to come into her unit. At the close of her evidence, the trial court entered a compulsory nonsuit. Superior Court affirmed, 418 Pa.Super. 260, 614 A.2d 261, and this appeal was taken. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
Smith owned a condominium unit in the King's Grant condominium plan. This condominium consists of approximately 250 units in eleven buildings. The number of units in the buildings varied so that some buildings had ten units, some twenty, and some thirty. Smith lived on the ground floor of a thirty-unit building.
Smith's unit was serviced by two separate sewer lines, one for the kitchen and one for the bathroom. Smith's unit, the two units above her, and the unit next to her all emptied into the same vertical pipes which ran through the building to the main sewer line below the building.
Smith left her unit on December 24, 1987 for the holidays. When she returned four days later, bathroom sewage had come up through the floor drain, the bathtub, the commode, and the bathroom sink and flooded her unit. There was extensive damage.
Between 1976 and December of 1987, Smith experienced more than twenty kitchen sink backups, some of which resulted in kitchen sewer water coming into her unit and causing damage. In other buildings, there were instances of bathroom sewer line clogging, which led to the association publishing the following notice in its newsletter:
SEWER BACK-UPS
No sanitary napkins, tampons or disposable diapers are to be disposed of in the toilets. This causes restrictions in the main drain lines which then back sewer water up into the lower apartment units. Please dispose of these items prop erly. How would you like to get up in the morning or come home at night to this kind of mess? The people on the lower floors have experienced this and your cooperation is requested.
Although Smith's bathroom drains and floor drains never backed up prior to December, 1987, Smith complained over the years to two presidents of the condominium association about the damage which had been caused to her apartment when the kitchen lines backed up.
As a result of the December, 1987 sewage backup, Smith sued King's Grant Condominium, and the condominium association joined as additional defendants the other unit owners whose units were connected to the same vertical bathroom pipe as Smith.
In her complaint, Smith alleged that the damage to her apartment was caused by the condominium's negligence:
7. The sewage backup into the Plaintiffs condominium unit was caused by the negligence of the Defendant generally and in the following particulars:
A. In failing to maintain its sewer lines in a good and operable condition.
B. In failing to periodically clean its sewer lines.
C. In failing to inspect its sewer lines.
D. In failing to take action to maintain clear, sewer lines when the Defendant knew of the probability that the sewer lines would become clogged.
E. In failing to install a back-flow valve so as to stop the flow of sewage into the Plaintiffs condominium unit when the Defendant knew or should have known of the potential hazard.
F. In failing to protect the Plaintiffs condominium unit from sewage backup when the Defendant knew or should have known of the probability of sewage backup into the Plaintiffs unit.
The trial court granted the condominium's motion for a compulsory nonsuit on the grounds that plaintiff was unable to show that a trespass occurred on her land from land owned or possessed by another, and on the grounds that plaintiff failed to show negligence on the part of defendants.
A plurality of Superior Court affirmed on the grounds that Smith failed to prove negligence under Restatement of Torts, Second § 364(c). According to the court: "appellant introduced no evidence that the sewer line back-ups could have been alleviated by any steps or measures undertaken by appellee." 418 Pa.Super. at 264, 614 A.2d at 263. Further, a res ipsa loquitur theory was not available to Smith because she failed to eliminate herself or others as possible causes of the sewer blockage. Finally, Superior Court held that although the doctrine of absolute nuisance "would appear to provide appellant [Smith] with a valid cause of action, we cannot ground a reversal of the trial court upon a cause of action which was not pleaded below." 418 Pa.Super. at 272, 614 A.2d at 267.
Judge Cirillo, dissenting, would have reversed the trial court and allowed the action to proceed under section 364, under a res ipsa loquitur theory, or under a theory of nuisance. Although the plurality determined that a cause of action in nuisance had not been pleaded, Judge Cirillo pointed out that after extensive pretrial discussion between the court and parties about the theories of liability which might apply to this case, the parties were on notice that any applicable theory would be considered. Thus, utilizing the theory of absolute nuisance, under which even the plurality would allow recovery, had it been properly pleaded, cannot be an unfair surprise.
Smith petitioned for allowance of appeal, and we granted allocatur.
Superior Court is correct in stating that recovery may be achieved in a case such as this on the basis of Restatement of Torts, Second, section 364 or on the basis of res ipsa loquitur, Restatement of Torts, Second, section 328 D. Section 364 provides:
LIABILITY OF POSSESSORS TO PERSONS OUTSIDE OF THE LAND.
TITLE A. LIABILITY FOR CONDITION OF LAND AND STRUCTURES THEREON.
§ 364. Creation or Maintenance of Dangerous Artificial Conditions.
A possessor of land is subject to liability to others outside of the land for physical harm caused by a structure or other artificial condition on the land, which the possessor realizes or should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of harm, if
(a) the possessor has created the condition, or
(b) the condition is created by a third person with the possessor's consent or acquiescence while the land is in his possession, or
(c) the condition is created by a third person without the possessor's consent or acquiescence, but reasonable care is not taken to make the condition safe after the possessor knows or should know of it.
Res ipsa loquitur is codified at Restatement of Torts, Second at Section 328 D:
(1) It may be inferred that harm suffered by the plaintiff is caused by negligence of the defendant when:
(a) the event is of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence:
(b) other responsible causes, including the conduct of the plaintiff and third persons, are sufficiently eliminated by the evidence; and
(c) the indicated negligence is within the scope of the defendant's duty to the plaintiff.
(2) It is the function of the court to determine whether the inference may reasonably be drawn by the jury, or whether it must necessarily be drawn.
(3) It is the function of the jury to determine whether the inference is to be drawn in any case where different conclusions may reasonably be reached.
In the case of a claim under section 364(c), liability of possessors of land to persons outside of the land for creation or maintenance of dangerous artificial conditions, plaintiff is required to show, in part, that the condominium did not take reasonable care; and under section 328 D, res ipsa loquitur, that plaintiff and third parties are not causes of the harm alleged. Smith failed to provide such proof. As indicated by Superior Court, Smith's trial counsel appeared to take the position that all he need prove was that the condominium maintained an artificial condition and that Smith was harmed by it:
SMITH'S COUNSEL. Our theory of the case is they owe us an absolute duty not to put sewage on our property, the same as any neighbor owes that duty to an adjacent neighbor, not to put sewage, smoke, unusual whatever it is, onto somebody else's property.
THE COURT. Is this how your complaint reads? CONDOMINIUM COUNSEL. No. Your Honor. His complaint reads negligence.
SMITH'S COUNSEL. It sounds in tort....
THE COURT. Is there an amended complaint in here someplace?
SMITH'S COUNSEL. No. That's the law of tort.
R.R. 191 A-194 A. It is apparent that Smith's counsel misapprehended the pleading requirements of his case. If he pleaded only negligence, he was required to prove negligence. He may not plead negligence, fail to prove negligence, and rely instead on another theory of recovery which was never pleaded.
Finally, Smith relies on a theory of recovery grounded in absolute nuisance. Superior Court summarizes absolute nuisance as follows:
Under such a doctrine a plaintiff need only show that sewage from defendant's land has travelled onto plaintiffs land and that plaintiff has been injured thereby. Negligence need not be shown, liability being absolute.
418 Pa.Super. at 272, 614 A.2d at 267. Although the Superior Court plurality acknowledged that absolute nuisance would provide appellant with a valid cause of action, it declined to allow the claim on the grounds that it was not pleaded.
On June 4, 1990, during pretrial discussion, and after considerable discussion between the court and counsel the day before as to whether Smith's negligence theory was viable absent expert testimony as to what caused the overflow of sewage and what the condominium association should have done to prevent it, counsel for Smith stated that he wished to amend his complaint by adding a new paragraph as follows:
The defendant as the entity having possession of the sewer line and having the duty of operation, care, upkeep and maintenance of the common areas was negligent in permitting the sewer line to overflow in the plaintiffs property after it knew or should have known that this sewer line and other similar lines had in the past overflowed into units such as was owned by the plaintiff.
R.R. 295 A. In response to the court's question as to whether this count was intended to add a theory of strict liability, counsel for Smith stated:
Not strict liability as the court interprets strict liability. This is what the courts refer to as negligence.
R.R. 300 A. The court then denied the amendment on the grounds that it adds nothing to the complaint. We agree. If the proposed amendment is intended to sound in negligence, it adds nothing to what had been pleaded already. Had Smith not insisted that the amendment was an additional count in negligence, perhaps the courts below would have properly treated her proposed amendment as an inartful attempt to plead absolute nuisance, which is what seems to have been her ease from the inception. Having failed to plead a case in absolute nuisance or to amend her pleadings to state a case in absolute nuisance, it was not error to grant the motion for a compulsory nonsuit.
Affirmed.
LARSEN, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
ZAPPALA, J., concurs in the result.
MONTEMURO, J., files a dissenting opinion which is joined by PAPADAKOS, J.
MONTEMURO, J., who was an appointed justice of this court at the time of argument, participated in the decision of this case in his capacity as a senior justice.
. This section of the restatement, "Liability of Possessors to Persons Outside of the Land," is set out infra.
. Res Ipsa Loquitur, which is codified at Section 328 D of the Restatement of Torts, Second, is set out infra.
. As this court held in Gilbert v. Korvette's Inc., 457 Pa. 602, 611, 327 A.2d 94, 99 (1974):
Res ipsa loquitur is neither a rule of procedure nor one of substantive tort law. It is only a shorthand expression for circumstantial proof of negligence—a rule of evidence.
. Judge Cirillo, dissenting, summarizes an action in absolute nuisance as follows:
Under the theory of absolute nuisance a defendant is held strictly liable for the offending activity, relieving the plaintiff of the burden of proving the defendant's negligence or intent to harm. Prosser and Keaton on Torts, 5th ed., § 78 at 552 (1984). The primary consideration in determining whether a condition constitutes an absolute nuisance is the relation of the objectionable activity to its surroundings. Id. The accumulation of sewage, when it Hows onto the property of another, has long been held to be an absolute nuisance.
418 Pa.Super. at 277, 614 A.2d at 270. As this court stated in In re Haugh's Appeal, 102 Pa. 42 (1883):
[Tjhe privy vault of the defendant, Haugh, by its offensive percola-tions has rendered foul and unfit for use the water of the plaintiff's well. This puts the defendant in the position of maintaining a private nuisance of a continuing character, which injures the property of his neighbor.... [T]he right to have a privy is a right only so long as it is used without material injury to the property of others; when its fetid contents begin to leak over upon the adjoining lands it becomes a nuisance and is actionable as such. The plea of necessity fails to justify an act of this kind, for the proposition that one man should, under any circumstances, be permitted to deposit any part of his health-destroying filth in or upon his neighbor's premises, is simply absurd.
Id. at 44-45. Emphasis added.