Court Opinion

ID: 9535654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:51:40.324018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:18.003586
License: Public Domain

PRENTICE, Justice.
This'cause is before us upon the petition of the plaintiffs (appellees) to transfer the cause from the Court of Appeals, Second District, which Court reversed the judgment of the Circuit Court of Marion County awarding damages, but withholding injunc-tive relief, against Defendants for unlawfully discharging' surface water run-off upon the land of Plaintiffs.
The opinion of the Court of Appeals, Second District, correctly followed ruling precedents of this Court; but such ruling precedents appear to be in need of clarification, as evidenced by the opinion of the Court of Appeals, Third District, in the cause entitled Rounds, et al. v. Hoelscher, (1981) handed down December 10, 1981 and published at 428 N.E.2d 1308. In the case at bar, the Court for the Second District correctly recognized and applied the “Common Enemy Rule,” whereas the Court for the Third District failed to recognize said rule as the established and prevailing rule and purported to establish as the law of this state that which has come to be known in other jurisdictions as the “Rule of Reasonable Use.”
In order to reconcile said conflict, we now grant the petition to transfer, and the decision and opinion of the Court of Appeals, Second District, which appears at 418 N.E.2d 569 is hereby vacated; although the judgment of the trial court is, nevertheless, reversed, because the evidence presented is insufficient to sustain it.
FACTS
The facts of the instant case are not in material dispute. Plaintiffs are the owners of a residential lot improved with a house and two outbuildings. The lot fronts on Auburn Street and faces west. The defendants own a commercial lot which is “L” shaped. The top of the “L” abuts Washington Street, an East-West thoroughfare; the leg abuts Auburn Street, a North-South Street, and the foot is adjacent to, north of and extends the full depth of Plaintiffs’ lot.
The elevation of Washington Street is higher than the land of Plaintiffs and Defendants. Surface water drains from Washington Street into Auburn Street and flows southwardly for approximately 1000 feet to a small creek or public drainage ditch. Auburn Street has no ditches or storm sewers, the fall is gentle, and the surface water sometimes overflows into the adjacent yards.
The side of Plaintiffs’ lot adjacent to Defendants’ lot is its low side, and the lowest point of the lot is at its rear (the easterly end). It is not clear whether the natural drainage of Plaintiffs and Defendants lots prior to Defendants making the alterations hereinafter mentioned, was onto Plaintiffs’ lot or onto Defendants’ lot. Plaintiff, Mrs. Haviland, testified that prior to Defendants improving their lot, she had never seen surface water drain from the Defendants’ lot onto their own and that no consequential amount of surface water had, therefore, puddled or accumulated upon their lot. For purposes of this opinion, therefore, we adopt the view that Defendants’ lot was no higher if, in fact, as high as that of the Plaintiffs.
Prior to 1970, Defendants’ lot was covered with grass and trees. In 1971, Defendants erected a commercial building on that portion of their lot adjacent to Washington Street; and in 1974, they built another commercial building along the foot of the “L” adjacent to and twenty (20) feet north of the plaintiffs’ north line. They also paved, for parking, that portion of the lot not built upon, except for the twenty foot strip adjacent to the plaintiffs’ north line. Some fill was used around the building; and, although it is not clear, it appears that Defendants also used substantial fill along the foot of the “L”, increasing it as it extended to the toe.
*975The roof of the more recently constructed of Defendants’ buildings is drained by means of three downspouts on the south side of the building. Two of these downspouts empty onto splash blocks at the corners of the building. The third one drains into an underground pipe which carries the water eastwardly to a point twenty feet north of the dividing line and fifty feet west of Plaintiffs’ east line, if extended.
Following completion of Defendants’ aforementioned improvements, Plaintiffs complained that surface water was draining from Defendants’ property onto their property, pooling there and causing substantial damage. Defendants then erected a concrete curbing approximately one foot north of Plaintiffs’ north line and extending approximately six inches above the finished grade of Defendants’ lot. On the south side, i.e., the plaintiffs’ side, the curbing extends approximately eight inches above grade at the west or Auburn Street end and approximately two feet above grade at the east end.
Erection of the curbing, if it alleviated the plaintiffs’ surface problem, did not eliminate it. There was testimony that in a sustained rain, water would accumulate behind the curb but eventually flow over it.
Historically, two diametrically opposed but clear rules were consistently followed in the various states with respect to surface water, which must be distinguished from water flowing, even if not continuously, through established and defined channels. Through extensive modifications of both rules, a third doctrine emerged and has been adopted in approximately twenty of the states. These rules, their development and their application are extensively treated and annotated at 93 A.L.R.3d 1193 et seq.
In its most simplistic and pure form the rule known as the “common enemy doctrine,” declares that surface water which does not flow in defined channels is a common enemy and that each landowner may deal with it in such manner as best suits his own convenience. Such sanctioned dealings include walling it out, walling it in and diverting or accelerating its flow by any means whatever.
The “civil law” doctrine, on the other hand, proscribes interfering with or altering the flow of surface water.
Both doctrines are harsh but have the common virtue of predictability. Under them, landowners know where they stand. They know what they may do and what they may not do without incurring severe risks. If at times the doctrines work to one’s disadvantage, there are other times when he reaps its benefits.
Because of the harshness of both of these rules, various exceptions and limitations have been engrafted upon them in all jurisdictions of the United States. A substantial number of states have permitted but minor modifications, and in such jurisdictions the doctrines are still generally referred to as the “common law doctrine” and the “civil law doctrine,” notwithstanding such modifications.
Other jurisdictions, approximately twenty in number, have evolved to or adopted by express design the aforementioned third doctrine now referred to as the “Rule of Reasonable Use.”
“The reasonable use rule was apparently first adopted in New Hampshire. Noting the inconvenience which would arise from adopting extreme rules that a landowner has either no right of drainage or an absolute right, the court in Bassett v. Salisbury Mfg. Co. (1862) 43 N.H. 569 (which was apparently primarily concerned with percolating waters), said that the sole ground of qualification of the landowner’s right of drainage was the similar rights of others, the extent of the qualification being determined under the rule of reasonable use, and the rights of each landowner being similar and his enjoyment dependent upon the action of the other landowners, so that the rights must be valueless unless exercised with reference to each other. * * *” 93 A.L.R.3d 1193 at 1216.
The common enemy and civil law rules are grounded upon real property concepts. The modifications engrafted upon them re-*976suited from the use of tort law concepts used to mitigate the harsh results of the property law doctrines. The doctrine of “reasonable use,” however, goes much further and focuses upon the results of the action and the consequent interference with another’s use of his land. Its advantage is flexibility. Its disadvantage, obviously is its unpredictability.
Although Indiana doubtlessly would not permit a malicious or wanton employment of one’s drainage rights under the common enemy doctrine, it appears that the only limitation upon such rights that we have thus far judicially recognized is that one may not collect or concentrate surface water and cast it, in a body, upon his neighbor. Cloverleaf Farms, Inc. v. Surratt, (1976) 169 Ind.App. 554, 349 N.E.2d 731 and cases there cited, Gene B. Glick Co., Inc. v. Marion Construction Corp., (1975) 165 Ind.App. 72, 331 N.E.2d 26, reh. denied, 165 Ind.App. 72, 333 N.E.2d 140 and cases there cited.
Plaintiffs acknowledge the rule in Indiana to be as hereinbefore stated. They appear to argue, however, that by a combination of erecting downspouts directed towards the property-line, paving a substantial portion of their land and erecting the aforementioned curb or retaining wall along the property line, the defendants somehow exceed the limits of what is permissible in fending off the surface water. It requires no reweighing of the evidence to determine that the evidence does not bear them out. There is simply no evidence that any surface water was ever channeled from Defendants’ land onto that of the plaintiffs or cast in a body upon them.
Under the common enemy doctrine, it is not unlawful to accelerate or increase the flow of surface water by limiting or eliminating ground absorption or changing the grade of the land. These two things, we may concede, are shown by the evidence to have resulted from Defendants’ improvements. However, the only evidence that water from the defendants’ premises entered those of the plaintiffs’ was testimony that, on occasions following sustained moderate to heavy rains, the water built up behind the wall and overflowed it. There was no showing whatever that the defendants, conducted the water “by new channels in unusual quantities onto particular parts of the lower field” as in Templeton v. Voshloe, (1880) 72 Ind. 134 or collected the water in a volume and cast it, as in Davis v. City of Crawfordsville, (1888) 119 Ind. 1, 21 N.E. 449 and in Patoka Township et al v. Hopkins, (1891) 131 Ind. 142, 30 N.E. 896, or “shed the water from their building so as to throw it upon the appellant’s lot.” (Emphasis added) as in Conner v. Woodfill et al, (1890) 126 Ind. 85, 25 N.E. 876.
We do not intimate, as Plaintiffs’ erroneously infer that the Court of Appeals did, that a distinction can be drawn between the case before us and the Conner case upon the basis that Defendants’ downspouts are situated twenty feet from the property line whereas in Conner they were but eight feet removed. The distinction lies in the character of the flow as it entered the adjoining property. That water was once impounded or channeled can be of no moment if it is diffused to a general flow at the point of entering the adjoining land.
Except as modified by the above cited cases and others holding that one may not, by artificial means throw or cast surface water upon his neighbor in unusual quantities so as to amplify the force at a given point or points, the law of this state remains as hereinafter quoted by this Court in Taylor, Administrator v. Fickas, (1878) 64 Ind. 167 at 173.
“ ‘The right of an owner of land to occupy and improve it in such manner and for such purposes as he may see fit, either by changing the surface or the erection of buildings or other structures thereon, is not restricted or modified by the fact that his own land is so situated with reference to that of adjoining owner that an alteration in the mode of its improvement or occupation in any portion of it will cause water, which may accumulate thereon by rains and snows falling on its surface, or flowing onto it over the surface of adjacent lots, either to *977stand in unusual quantities on other adjacent lands, or pass into or over the same in greater quantities or in other directions than they were accustomed to flow.’ ”
“Again, from the same cause:
“ ‘The obstruction of surface water or an alteration in the flow of it affords no cause of action in behalf of a person who may suffer loss or detriment therefrom against one who does no act inconsistent with the due exercise of dominion over his own soil.’ ”
Since this case was decided by the Court of Appeals, Second District, the Third District of that Court has handed down its decision in Rounds et al v. Hoelscher, (1981) Ind., 428 N.E.2d 1308. That court failed to recognize the prohibition against channeling surface water upon one’s lower neighbor at particular point or points as a limiting exception to the common enemy rule, as it has been clearly recognized by this Court for more than a century and, instead, referred to the cases that invoked it as applications of the civil rule. From this incorrect premise, it concluded that the civil rule had been applied with respect to altering or increasing the flow upon lower lands, while the common enemy doctrine had been applied in cases where lower owners had caused unwanted water to be diverted or impounded upon upper owners by means of dams or levees. The majority then purported to settle that which had, theretofore, been clear. It declared the rule of this jurisdiction to be the Rule of Reasonable Use and enumerated seven non-exclusive considerations to be employed in the determination of what uses are reasonable.
Judge Hoffman, concurring in the result in Rounds, supra, correctly noted that the case law in this area was not unsettled and that the majority had ignored stare decisis. “I cannot agree,” he wrote, “that this court should in any respect presume to be a barometer of public opinion or the weather-vane of social change. It is for the Legislature to establish the procedures for such change. The function of the Court of Appeals is to interpret the law and lay down general guidelines by which the lawyers and the trial courts of the State may make determinations upon which they can depend. This function cannot be fulfilled by summarily abandoning the common enemy rule and replacing it with a rule of reasonableness. No longer will lawyers be able to advise their clients with any degree of certainty. What may be reasonable to one person in the use of his property may be unreasonable to an adjacent landowner. Neither of these opinions may comport with what a trial judge might declare is reasonable. The majority opinion does nothing more than muddy the waters in this area of the law.” (Emphasis added) 428 N.E.2d at 1318.
To Judge Hoffman’s comments we add that although the Common Enemy Doctrine may, at times, inflict hardships, it is as fair to one as it is to another — a guiding precept of the law. Additionally, it has worked satisfactorily in this State from the beginning, and it is well understood. There has been no change in the forces that cause water to run down hill since the problems caused thereby were first considered and resolved in this State; and there is no basis for assuming that a change in the rules for coping with such problems would, over-all, reduce their number or make them any more palatable.
Although courts should not be slow to respond to changing conditions, changes in the established law are not warranted simply because it is imperfect, and we should not feel compelled to join the ranks of greater numbers when it has not been demonstrated that their way is the better way.
We recognize no need to take the advantage, which must repose somewhere, away from the owner at the top of the hill simply to give it to the owner who was the first in the watershed to develop his land, or to the owner who has friends in high places or can engender the greater sympathy for his plight. Neither are we disposed to make drainage commissions of our already overburdened trial courts. These, we perceive to be some of the latent drawbacks to the so-called Rule of Reasonable Use. We, *978therefore, expressly disapprove the holding in Rounds, supra, to the extent that it purports to change the surface water law of this State.
Transfer is granted. The decision of the Court of Appeals, Second District, is vacated, and the judgment of the trial court is reversed.
DeBRULER and PIVARNIK, JJ., concur.
HUNTER, J., dissents with opinion in which GIVAN, C. J., concurs.