Court Opinion

ID: 3551455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 23:04:00.213613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:06:39.080459
License: Public Domain

I, also, think there should be judgment on the report for the plaintiff. Certain facts were reported by the referee, for what purpose does not very clearly appear, and judgment was rendered by the court below for the plaintiff in accordance with the general finding of the referee. The defendants excepted to the order for judgment against them. I understand the ground they take to be, first, that there was no evidence from which the referee could legally find that the damage was caused by any want of reasonable and ordinary care on the part of the city with respect to the sewer; and, second, that if there was such evidence, still they are not liable, according to the doctrine of Eastman v. Meredith, 36 N.H. 284.
The first position is certainly without foundation. It is entirely clear that there was evidence from which the referee might well find fault and negligence in the original construction of the sewer, and negligence in not removing the obstruction before the injury happened.
The second point is undoubtedly one of more intrinsic difficulty. The defendants were not bound by law to construct the sewer, and herein the case differs entirely from that of an injury caused by a defect in a highway. They were, however, authorized to construct it, and voluntarily undertook that service. The plaintiff's cellar was drained into the sewer "of right," as the case finds; so there is no pretence that her legal rights had been forfeited or impaired by her own act. It does not appear whether this right to drain her cellar into the common sewer was of such a character that she could compel the defendants to keep up the sewer for that purpose, nor whether the right was obtained by the payment of a reasonable sum to the city, as provided by Gen. Stats., ch. 44, sec. 9; but, in the view I take of the case, neither of these things is material. It is material that she did not, without right, open her drain into the sewer.
As to the application of Eastman v. Meredith, it appears to me the cases are not parallel. There it was held, that, where a building, erected by a town for a town-house, was so imperfectly constructed that the flooring gave way at the annual town-meeting, and an inhabitant and legal voter, in attendance on the meeting, received thereby a bodily injury, he could not maintain an action against the town to recover damages for the injury.
The decision was placed entirely on the peculiar nature of the obligation of a town to provide a safe place in which to hold town-meetings. That duty is not imposed by statute, nor by contract. It is not an enterprise undertaken by the town for gain. It is at most a public or political duty, and the right of the citizen that it shall be properly performed is a public or political right.
The court say, — "We regard the present case as one of new impression. We have heard of no earlier attempt in this state to maintain an action against a town for a private injury suffered by a citizen of the town from neglect of the town to provide him with safe and suitable means of exercising his public rights, and we are not informed of any case in which such an action has been maintained in any other state." *Page 298 
Nearly the whole of the elaborate opinion of the court is occupied with showing the distinctions between that case, and cases bearing a very strong resemblance to the present.
The question, whether municipal corporations in this country, and corporations in England having some of the powers and charged with some of the duties usually exercised by municipal corporations here, are liable for negligence, carelessness, or misfeasance, both in the performance of their legal duties and the doing of voluntary acts within the scope of their authority, has been much considered by the courts on both sides the Atlantic; and the decided weight of modern authority is, that in this respect they stand like private individuals or corporations. The English cases on this subject are very thoroughly and carefully reviewed by BLACKBURN, J., in Mersey Docks Trustees v. Gibbs, L. R., 1 H. L. 93. That was an action against the Mersey Docks Board of Trustees, a corporation created by act of parliament, with power to build docks at Liverpool and secure dock rates, which rates they were bound by the statute to apply wholly to the maintenance of the docks and the payment of a very large debt contracted in making them. The plaintiff's vessel, while entering one of the docks, ran upon a bank of mud which had been suffered to accumulate at the entrance of the dock, and was damaged. It was held that the principle on which a private person, or a company, is liable for damages occasioned by the neglect of servants, applies to a corporation which has been entrusted by statute to perform certain works, and to receive tolls for the use of those works, although those tolls, unlike the tolls received by the private person or the company, are not applicable to the use of the individual corporators, or to that of the corporation, but are devoted to the maintenance of the works, and, in case of any surplus existing, the tolls themselves are to be proportionately diminished. This case, decided in 1866, shows most clearly the state of the law in England on this point at the present time, and is very much in point.
There was evidence here from which the referee might find want of due care in the construction of the sewer, and that the damage happened by reason thereof.
In The Mayor, c., of New York v. Bailey, 2 Den. 433, it was held that a municipal corporation is responsible for the negligence or unskilfulness of its agents and servants, when employed in the construction of a work for the benefit of the city or town, subject to the government of such corporation. The action was for injury occasioned by the negligent and unskilful construction of a dam on the Croton river, being part of the public works built pursuant to a statute for supplying the city with pure and wholesome water.
In The Rochester White Lead Co. v. Rochester, 3 N.Y. 463, the corporation of the city of Rochester, having power to cause common sewers, drains, c., to be made in any part of the city, directed a culvert to be built, for the purpose of conducting the water of a natural stream which had previously been the outlet through which the surface water of a portion of the city had been carried off. A freshet having *Page 299 
occurred, the culvert, in consequence of its want of capacity and the unskilfulness of its construction, failed to discharge the waters, so that they were set back upon the factory of the plaintiffs, and injured their property situated therein. Held, that the city corporation was liable for the damages. And the doctrine was laid down, that an ordinance of a city corporation, directing the construction of a work within the general scope of its powers, is a judicial act for which the corporation is not responsible; but the prosecution of the work is ministerial in its character, and the corporation must therefore see that it is done in a safe and skilful manner.
There was also, in the present case, as already suggested, evidence from which the referee might find negligence in not removing the obstruction from the sewer before the injury occurred; and my opinion is, that this also furnishes legal ground upon which the award of the referee should be sustained.
The case of The Mayor, c., of New York v. Furze, 3 Hill 612, is in point. It was there held that the corporation of the city of New York are bound to repair the sewers, c., constructed by them; and, if an inhabitant be injured by reason of their neglect in this particular, he may maintain an action against them for his damages.
Another strong case of the same description is Child v. Boston, 4 Allen 41, where the city was held responsible for negligently suffering the common sewers to occasion a nuisance in the estates of the citizens whose private drains enter into them.
A large number of cases bearing in the same direction may be found in Shearman  Redfield on Negligence, secs. 120, 144, 151, 579.
The point as to want of due care and skill in the original construction was decided by this court in the recent case of Gilman v. Laconia,55 N.H. 130.
I think the defendants were bound to the exercise of ordinary care and skill, both in constructing and maintaining the sewer, and that, for any injury which happens to the estate of a citizen from a failure in that respect, they are responsible.
Judgment on the report for the plaintiff. *Page 300