Opinion ID: 2395126
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Is the water surface water?

Text: Plaintiff asserts the water was not surface water when it was channeled into a stormwater collection system and cast upon its property. We agree. South Carolina law defines surface water as waters of a casual and vagrant character, which ooze through the soil or diffuse or squander themselves over the surface, following no definite course. They are waters which, though customarily and naturally flowing in a known direction and course, have nevertheless no banks or channels in the soil, and include waters which are diffused over the surface of the ground, and which are derived from rains and melting snows.... Lawton v. S. Bound R.R. Co., 61 S.C. 548, 552, 39 S.E. 752, 753 (1901). We need look no further to answer the question before us. [1] While the water at issue was surface water before it was collected in the stormwater system, it then was concentrated and cast onto Plaintiff's property. Once surface water is deliberately contained, concentrated, and cast onto an adjoining landowner's property, it is no longer naturally flowing, diffuse water. Water spewing in an unnatural concentration from a stormwater drainage system lacks the identifiable characteristics of surface water the court approved in Lawton. The water intruding upon Plaintiff's property was not owing to fortuitous natural causes, but instead to the deliberate actions of another. We find that naturally falling water that has been intentionally concentrated and cast upon the insured's property is not surface water for the purposes of the Policy. Accordingly, we answer the first certified question no; the water at issue is not surface water.