Court Opinion

ID: 9513846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:41:26.096039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:03.937123
License: Public Domain

KAPSNER, Justice,
concurring in the result.
[¶ 23] I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. I am troubled with the Court’s conclusion in ¶ 15 that a policy deciding when to make replacements of unlined cast iron pipes does not constitute a deliberate act. Such a policy was clearly made after considerable deliberation and was then acted upon. Damages caused when such a policy fails could subject a city to liability under a theory of inverse condemnation. See, e.g., California State Auto. Ass’n v. City of Palo Alto, 138 Cal.App.4th 474, 41 Cal.Rptr.3d 503, 509 (2006) (discussing Pacific Bell v. City of San Diego, 81 Cal.App.4th 596, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 897 (2000) and concluding damage caused from sewage backup was recoverable under inverse condemnation theory despite deliberately conceived policy of sewer maintenance).
[¶ 24] Instead of concluding a maintenance policy is not a deliberate act, I would follow our past cases. As the majority opinion correctly points out, our cases require a showing that a municipality’s actions, in maintaining a public utility or improvement, reach a level of nuisance before a municipality is liable for damage to property under inverse condemnation. See majority opinion supra, at ¶ 11 (citing Jamestown Plumbing & Heating Co. v. City of Jamestown, 164 N.W.2d 355 (N.D.1968); Kinnischtzke v. City of Glen Ullin, 79 N.D. 495, 57 N.W.2d 588 (1953)). Although nuisance may be a separate cause of action, a nuisance will also support a claim of inverse condemnation.
[¶ 25] The City of Fargo’s actions did not rise to the level of a nuisance. This *52claim was based upon a single instance of flooding. Therefore, I concur with the result but not the legal analysis of the majority opinion.
[¶ 26] Carol Ronning Kapsner