Court Opinion

ID: 9684078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:46:08.587193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:50.394788
License: Public Domain

WHITE, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. While the principal opinion correctly recognizes that the City of St. Louis (City) lacks sovereign immunity for its negligence when supplying water, the opinion errs when determining that the City has no common law duty to the Junior College District (College) for the safe provision of its water services.1
The City’s charter provides that its water division has the special charge for the “operation and maintenance of the waterworks and of all facilities for the acquisition and distribution of water.”2 As soon as the City began acting, in its private, proprietary, corporate capacity, to construct the public water works, it entered upon an undertaking “which, in all its details, should be subordinated to the rule requiring the use of care, for the work is then ministerial.”3 This duty necessarily *455carries with it a duty to maintain the delivery system so as not to inflict injury upon private property.4
The principal opinion concludes that the City’s duty ends with maintaining the water main itself, and that the relevant city ordinances, if ascribing any duty at all, “suggest” that it is the College’s burden to maintain access to the stop-boxes, shut-off values and supply lines. However, access to the stop-box containing the shut-off value for the broken water line was denied to the College by the City’s re-paving of the street, and ordinance 23.12.020 requires the City to give notice to the property owner under such circumstances — notice that the City failed to provide.5 Moreover, the City has exclusive control over the roadway pursuant to section 82.190 absolving the College of any duty to modify the roadway to expose the stop-box without affirmative notice and without proper authorization from the City.6
The trial court appropriately noted that the City cannot be held liable for the violation of its own ordinances, but those ordinances can be used to determine the City’s standard of care when operating its water division.7 The City breached the standard of care in ordinance 23.12.020 when failing to provide the College with notice of its paving over the stop-box. And while ordinance 23.04.185, expressly declaring it is City’s duty to make the shut-off valve accessible, does not apply retroactively from its enactment in 1993, it demonstrates scienter on the part of the City and the water division. The City was fully aware that it had been paving over stop-boxes and eliminating private access to control valves, thereby placing property owners at risk should a water pipe rupture.
The City also affirmatively declared, and subsequently breached, its duty to maintain access to the stop-box as revealed in the water division’s foreman’s manual (WDFM). The notation in the “elevation view” of the WDFM schematic of the College’s access to the water main unequivocally states: “Concrete Valve Box Maintained by the Water Division At the Expense of the Owner.” In the “plan view” of this schematic the stop-box is clearly labeled “Concrete Valve Box Purchased, Installed, Owned By The Owner And Maintained By Water Division At Owner’s Expense.” The water division by its own declaration had assumed the duty of care of maintaining the stop-box, and maintenance by necessity requires access. *456The fact that the stop-box itself did not require maintenance is irrelevant to the City’s breach of its duty to maintain access to the instrumentality it controlled; the very instrumentality that prevented the College from stopping the flow of the City’s water.8
While not part of the stipulated facts, it is instructive to examine some of the City’s remaining ordinances that confirm it is the City who possesses the highest degree of control and maintenance over the instrumentality producing the College’s damages. The City dictates the exact apparatus and/or the specifications of all of the instrumentality used to tap and control the flow of water from the City’s water main. All taps, stopcocks (valves), stop-boxes (valve access boxes), service lines, meters, and meter boxes are controlled by the City, despite being owned by the property holder.9 In fact, the fire-line that broke was an eight-inch service line making it the City’s duty to install the tap, tapping valves and water meter.10
More telling is the City’s ordinance 23.04.070 setting the standard on how repairs are to be made on service lines. The City’s standard of care requires the City to shut off the water to any premises where the owner’s water pipes and attachments are in disrepair or where there is an emergency impairment of the instrumentality. A broken water line is certainly one that is in disrepair and one that requires maintenance. The City breached its standard of care to shut the water off until the College brought the instrumentality back into conformity with the City’s regulations. Moreover, failure to maintain access to the shutoff value created an emergency impairment to the proper control of the water.
Casting all of the City’s ordinances aside, it is an inescapable fact that the City exercises total control of the primary instrumentality of its water division, namely the water itself. The principal opinion places all liability on the College based upon ownership of the service lines and concludes the City could only be liable if the City’s property caused injury to the College’s property. Not only did the City control the instrumentality that produced the damage to the College, the water and its delivery system, the City owned the water. More than 500,000 gallons of City water flooded the College.11 It was the *457City’s property that damaged the College’s property, and the probability or likelihood of harm under these circumstances was sufficiently serious that any ordinary person would have taken precautions to avoid it.12
In short, the City controlled all of the instrumentality used in delivering water to the College. The City controlled access to the stop-boxes, having exclusive control of the road pursuant to section 82.190. The City failed to provide notice to the College of its re-paving and denied the College access to the stop-box. The City declared the maintenance of the stop-box to be'their own duty in the WDFM. The City controlled and owned the most basic instrumentality the water division uses for the delivery of water, the water itself. The City could have shut off the water main and ended the flood instantly as soon as the College notified them of the leak, or immediately located the stop-box and shut off the value to the College’s fire line when initially arriving on the scene. The City chose not to, and the preventable damage that resulted to the College’s property was inflicted by the property of the City, the City’s water.
The trial court may have improperly applied ordinance 28.04.185 retroactively to reach its result that the City breached its duty in the safe provision of water, but its conclusion was correct. When the trial court’s decision is correct, even if based upon different reasoning, that decision will not be disturbed because the trial court gave a wrong or insufficient reason for it.13 *458I would affirm the trial court’s judgment.14

.The City is a municipal corporation and its water division, by supplying water for a profit, was acting in a private corporate capacity eliminating sovereign immunity. City of Hamilton v. Public Water Supply Dist. No. 2 of Caldwell County, 849 S.W.2d 96, 102 (Mo.App.1993); Lockhart v. Kansas City, 351 Mo. 1218, 175 S.W.2d 814, 815(1943); Lober v. Kansas City, 74 S.W.2d 815, 819 (Mo.1934); Public Serv. Comm’n v. City of Kirkwood, 319 Mo. 562, 4 S.W.2d 773, 775 (1928); 12 McQuillin Municipal Corporations, § 35.35 (3rd Ed.1986). This distinction, between governmental and proprietary functions of municipalities, was specifically developed by the courts to impose common law liability on municipal corporations for the negligence of their agents. Loving v. City of St. Joseph, 753 S.W.2d 49, 51 (Mo.App.1988); Allen v. Salina Broadcasting, Inc., 630 S.W.2d 225, 227 (Mo.App.1982); State ex rel. Askew v. Kopp, 330 S.W.2d 882, 890 (Mo.1960).

. Charter of the City of St. Louis, Article XIII Board of Public Service, Section 11 Department of Public Utilities, Water Division.

. Donahew v. City of Kansas City, 136 Mo. 657, 38 S.W. 571, 573 (1897); St. Joseph Light & Power Co. v. Kaw Valley Tunneling, Inc., 589 S.W.2d 260, 267 (Mo.1979). See also section 290.210(7); Jungerman v. City of Raytown, 925 S.W.2d 202, 204-205 (Mo. banc 1996).

.The common law duty of reasonable care accompanying a municipality’s proprietary provision of water has been reiterated time and time again by the courts and legal scholars. See Footnote 1; See also Thurston v. City of St. Joseph, 51 Mo. 510, 515-517 (Mo.1873); Jones, Neg. Mun. Corp. 266; Dill. Mun. Corp. (4th Ed.) § 1049; Municipal Corporations by E.C. Yokley, The Miche Company Law Publishers, Virginia 1958, Section 451, pages 67-68; Section 462, pages 99-100; Section 500, page 202. Municipal Corporations, 3d Edition by Eugene McQuillin, Thompson/West West Group, 1997, section 49.23, pages 274-277; Section 49.30; Pages 293-304; Section 52.23, pages 380-385; Section 53.29 2003 Cum.Supp. By analogy, this is a statutory duty for all public water corporations, and violation of this duty is negligence per se. See RSMo 393.130; Martin v. Springfield City Water Co., 128 S.W.2d 674, 681 (Mo.App.1939).

. The stop-box not only housed the shut-off valve that connected the College's service line to the City’s water main, but it is physically located directly above this junction, and makes contact with, the City’s water main. Water Division’s Foreman’s Manual (WDFM), dated May 15, 1990. (Legal File 42.)

. All statutory references are to RSMo 2000 unless otherwise indicated.

. Bean v. City of Moberly, 350 Mo. 975, 169 S.W.2d 393, 397 (1943); Von Der Haar v. City of St. Louis, 226 S.W.2d 376, 380 (Mo.App.1950).

.The principal opinion attempts to disregard this breach of duty by stating the diagram is a generic drawing appearing not to apply to commercial customers. The opinion also asserts that the WDFM is irrelevant because the parties admit that no maintenance was required prior to the line breaking. While the City argues that there was no separate contractual arrangement for maintenance of the service lines with the College, the City argued nothing to support the supposition that it was not the City’s customary practice or duty to maintain the stop-boxes and access to them for its commercial customers. Instead, the City erroneously contends the 1990 WDFM, containing the 1980’s schematic where the City assumes the duty of maintenance of the stop-box, did not become applicable until after the City paved over the stop-box. The dissent does not solely rely on the WDFM to establish the City’s duty as the principal opinion so mischaracterizes, but rather the dissent simply considers the totality of the evidence and combined with the City’s ordinances, the WDFM serves as even more indicia of City's duty to maintain access to the shut-off valves, and the breach of the standard of care.

. City Ordinances 23.04.080, 23.04.150, 23.04.180, 23.04.210, and 23.04.210-23.04.217.

. City Ordinance 23.04.210.

. The College sustained tremendous damage to its property as a result of a preventable, or at minimum a mitigable, flood produced by the City controlled instrumentality delivering the water and by the City's property itself— the water. The principal opinion fears that to hold the City responsible under these circumstances goes to far and would result in liabili*457ty in every instance in which commercial or residential property was flooded by the City’s water. This reasoning ignores the fact that the City had to breach numerous duties prior to their water being able to reach and damage the College’s property. It is the combination of the City’s control of their properly and its property, the water, which produced the damage. Any individual claims of liability against the water division would require a fact-specific inquiry and a comparative fault analysis— an analysis that was applied in this case when the trial court limited damages to those stipulated by the parties. Allowing half a million gallons of City water to flood the College is not a "mere” or trivial fact as the principal opinion so characterizes. The massive quantity of water the City allowed to flood the College demonstrates the degree of the City’s negligence when the majority of the property damage could have been easily prevented. This case is not one of a flooded basement, and it is not the dissent the principal opinion targets with its response. Rather, the principal opinion appears unable, or unwilling, to trust Missouri’s trial courts with the application of negligence principles and the appropriate determination of damages.

. Lopez v. Three Rivers Elec. Co-op., Inc., 26 S.W.3d 151, 156 (Mo. banc 2000).

. American Standard Ins. Co. v. Hargrave, 34 S.W.3d 88, 92 (Mo. banc 2000). Because of the foreseeability of the harm, a theory of general negligence supports the College's recovery. There was also a common law duty created under the theory of undertaking and reliance in two regards. First, the City engaged in the undertaking of the safe provision of water and the College was entitled to reasonably rely on the City to notify it when paving over its stop-box denying them access to the shut-off valve. Hoover’s Dairy, 700 S.W.2d at 432; Winn v. Pollard, 62 S.W.3d 611, 616 (Mo.App.2001). Second, the College was also entitled to reasonably rely on the City to shut off the water once the City responded to the flood in its beginning stages— the city had multiple means of doing so once notified of the leak and negligently elected to allow the flood to continue for hours. Id. It is incomprehensible that the principal opinion finds the City’s actions did not cause the College to suffer harm it would not have otherwise suffered once abandoning the College. The City not only elected not to employ its exclusive methods of stopping the flood, but its employees also abandoned the undertaking taking with them the only available diagram to access the shut-off valve thereby eliminating the College’s only independent means of shutting off the water. The third negligence theoiy supporting the College’s recovery is that of res ipsa loquitor. Contrary to the principal opinion's mischaracterization of this argument as proving too much, this is the *458legal theory most commonly applied in instances where a water division acts in a proprietary manner and the municipality constructed and had exclusive control over the defective condition that produced the damages, i.e. the water and its delivery system. Lober, 74 S.W.2d at 819; The Law of Local Government Operations § 32.18 Pages 1058-60; Charles S. Rhyne, 1980, Wash. D.C.

. By negating the College s common law negligence claim, the principal opinion potentially creates the unintended consequence of eliminating an entire class of claims that can be brought against the City's proprietary water division.