Title: Brown v. City of Fairhope
Citation: 93 So. 2d 419
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: March 7, 1957

93 So. 2d 419 (1957)
M. L. BROWN et al.
v.
CITY OF FAIRHOPE et al.
1 Div. 693.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 7, 1957.
*420 Chason &amp; Stone, Bay Minette, and Johnston, McCall &amp; Johnston, Mobile, for appellants.
Beebe &amp; Swearingen, Bay Minette, for appellees.
MERRILL, Justice.
Appellants filed their complaints, consisting of two counts, against the appellees, the City of Fairhope, a municipal corporation, and The Water Works and Sewer Board of the City of Fairhope, a corporation. The defendants filed separate demurrers to the complaint and these demurrers were sustained. Thereupon, appellants took a nonsuit because of the adverse rulings of the court in sustaining the demurrers to the complaint.
Count One of the complaint is as follows:
Count Two is identical with Count One except that it omits any reference to the servants, agents or employees of said defendants and charges that "* * * the defendants so negligently maintained or operated sewer lines" etc.
The appellee, in brief, argues that the action of the trial court should be upheld *421 for any one of the four objections to the complaint, for which there were apt grounds of demurrer. The first objection is that the complaint alleges two distinct causes of action in the same count and that it "joins two defendants as tort-feasors, which under the law could not be engaged in a joint enterprise and could not be joint feasors and hence could not be joined in the same complaint."
Addressing ourselves first to the italicized portion of the statement, there is nothing in the complaint which shows that the defendants could not be engaged in a joint enterprise under the law. That is a matter of pleading and proof and could only be brought to the court's attention on demurrer by a "speaking demurrer," which is improper. It could be that on proof there may be a variance, but the complaint charges that the "defendants" in one count and "the servants, agents or employees of said defendants" in the other, negligently maintained and operated the sewer lines. See Sloss-Sheffield Steel &amp; Iron Co. v. Wilkes, 231 Ala. 511, 165 So. 764(21) (22), 109 A.L.R. 385.
Code 1940, Tit. 7, § 139, provides:
We have held that where two defendants are sued as joint tort-feasors, the plaintiff can recover against one of them, although his proof may fail as to the other. See F. W. Woolworth Co. v. Erickson, 221 Ala. 5, 127 So. 534(4, 6); Sloss-Sheffield Steel &amp; Iron Co. v. Wilkes, 236 Ala. 173, 181 So. 276(1). The grounds of demurrer raising the first objections were not well taken. The case of City of Columbiana v. J. W. Kelley &amp; Co., 172 Ala. 336, 55 So. 526, cited by appellee, is not an apt authority.
The second objection is that the complaint does not join as party defendant the agent, servant or employee responsible for the tort complained of, or show cause why not joined as required by § 503, Tit. 37 of the Code of 1940. This section does not apply in the instant case. In discussing code sections, which are now §§ 502 and 503 of Tit. 37, this court, in City of Birmingham v. Corr, 229 Ala. 321, 157 So. 56, 57 said:
The third objection is that "the complaint does not allege the facts constituting the negligence complained of." The statement of a few rules will suffice to show that the grounds of demurrer raising this point were not well taken.
In a count charging negligence, it is sufficient to allege only facts and circumstances from which the law imposes a duty to the plaintiff, and then a general charge of negligence in the performance of that duty without a statement of the particular manner in which it was negligently performed. Wagnon v. Patterson, 260 Ala. 297, 70 So. 2d 244; Birmingham Electric Co. v. Carver, 255 Ala. 471, 52 So. 2d 200.
A count which alleges facts from which negligence may be reasonably inferred, *422 followed by averments of negligence whereby the plaintiff assumes the burden to prove negligence in the particular case, is sufficient as an allegation of defendant's negligence. City of Birmingham v. Young, 246 Ala. 650, 22 So. 2d 169; City of Birmingham v. Smith, 231 Ala. 95, 163 So. 611, and cases cited.
Where the complaint shows a causal connection between the injury and the negligence, the acts constituting the negligence, the quo modo, need not be set out. Vulcan Rivet Corp. v. Lawrence, 214 Ala. 378, 108 So. 3, and cases cited. Here the complaint shows the alleged injury to be the overflowing of raw sewage into plaintiffs' home, and that this was caused by the negligent operation and maintenance of the sewer lines by the defendants, all of which proximately resulted in the listed injuries. The two counts meet the rules cited and were not subject to the third objection.
The last objection raised the point that the maintenance and operation of the sewer lines was a governmental function and that prevents the defendants from being sued. The rationale of the argument is that since the cases of City of Tuscaloosa v. Fitts, 209 Ala. 635, 96 So. 771, and Ivory v. City of Montgomery, 35 Ala.App. 631, 51 So. 2d 559, hold that the collection of garbage by a municipality is a governmental, and not a corporate, function, and the case of Spear v. Ward, 199 Ala. 105, 74 So. 27, holds that the preservation of public health by the installation of sanitary systems of sewers is within the police power of the municipal government, that the maintenance and operation of sanitary sewers is a governmental function. But our cases hold otherwise. In Sisco v. City of Huntsville, 220 Ala. 59, 124 So. 95, this court said:
See also, City of Birmingham v. Greer, 220 Ala. 678, 126 So. 859; City of Birmingham v. Norwood, 23 Ala.App. 443, 126 So. 616.
These four objections cover all the grounds of the demurrers. It follows that the trial court erred in sustaining the demurrers, and the judgment of the trial court is reversed and the cause is remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.