Opinion ID: 1661002
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleged Negligence of City.

Text: Plaintiff's contentions with respect to the alleged negligence of the city are confined to alleged failures of inspection and maintenance of the sewer main in the area of plaintiff's home. No issue is raised that the sewer main was not properly constructed. The duty of a municipality with respect to inspection and maintenance of sewers is well stated by American Jurisprudence as follows: The duty of maintaining sewers and drains in good repair includes the obligation to keep them free of obstruction, and a municipality is liable for negligence in its exercise to any person injured by such negligence, whether the damages result from its failure to use reasonable diligence to keep its sewers and drains from becoming clogged,as where the municipal corporation fails in its duty to exercise a reasonable degree of watchfulness to ascertain the condition of sewers and drains from time to time so as to prevent them from becoming obstructed from its failure to remove an obstruction from a sewer or drain within a reasonable time after actual or constructive notice thereof, or from a trespass by the employees of the municipal corporation in the care or maintenance of a drain.... [1] Where damage has arisen by reason of a defect in the construction or operation of a sewer, this court has held a municipality is only liable if it fails to remedy the defect after actual or constructive notice of the defect. [2] By adopting the aforenoted rule stated in American Jurisprudence, the scope of liability is now extended so that it may be grounded on failure to reasonably inspect. This is an expansion of the concept of constructive notice and in keeping with the liability imposed upon municipalities for failure to exercise ordinary care which resulted from the elimination of municipal immunity by Holytz v. Milwaukee. [3] The evidence in the instant case discloses that defendant annually cleaned its sewer mains shortly after Labor Day, and as part of this operation a rotating root-cutting device was used. Also, as part of this cleaning operation, brushes were inserted to remove any cut roots or other dislodged material. Such cleaning operations necessarily included an inspection. Some neighboring villages and cities followed this annual cleaning practice, while others cleaned their sewers less frequently. There was testimony that root growth in sewers is a problem in all municipally operated sewer systems. Vik and Huismann, defendant's experts, testified that this annual cleaning was good maintenance practice, while Koletzke, plaintiff's expert, testified that it was not. The trial court, by finding of fact No. 11, found that defendant was following proper cleaning practice by cleaning its sewer system once a year. This was in accord with the weight of the evidence. Huismann further testified that cleaning more often than once a year would be required of the sewer main in question, if there had been a history of considerable root trouble The record, however, is entirely barren of any history of root trouble in this sewer main. Some neighbors had experienced root trouble in their laterals. The Freitags replaced their concrete lateral with a four-inch cast iron lateral in 1956 because of root problems. Koletzke testified that if roots were entering the laterals in this area, they would also be entering the main. On the other hand Vik testified that he would not consider the Freitag area to be a troubled area. On this record we cannot hold as a matter of law that there was any duty on the part of defendant to make any inspection of the sewer main in question in between the dates of its annual cleaning operation. Neither can we hold that the trial court's finding that defendant was not negligent is against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence.