Court Opinion

ID: 9651464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:19:48.13352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:34.104658
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Joslin,
dissenting. The majority today hold that a landowner’s liability for the diversion of surface water from his land to that of another hinges in each case upon a factual determination of whether in view of all the circumstances his conduct in the use and improvement of his property is reasonable or unreasonable, and they enunciate four guidelines to aid the ' factfinder in making that determination. Because I believe that the proposed factual test is no “rule” at all and that it fails to provide a landowner any reasonably certain standards governing the use of his land, I respectfully dissent.
It may well be that unless specific exceptions are made both the common-enemy doctrine as presently prevailing *276in this state1 and the civil-law rule lack the flexibility to lead to the fairest result in a particular case, and that the concept of “reasonable use” reflects better than either of those rules contemporary sentiment toward the use and development of real property in light of the interests of neighboring owners. But in my opinion neither the majority nor the decisions they cite have defined that concept as a principled standard of law, with sufficient certainty to enable counsel to advise a landowner-client how he may use his property without incurring liability for surface water diversion. The requirement that a landowner thus either proceed at his peril or resort to the courts is an excessive burden. For that reason, until adequate reasonable-use standards are formulated this court should adhere to its present rule, which sets forth its requirements with precision, clarity, and certainty, and which can from time to time, if the occasion demands, be fully reviewed and further refined.
Kenneth M. Beaver, for plaintiffs.
John F. Dolan, for respondent.

See Johnson v. White, 26 R. I. 207, 208, 58 A. 658, 659 (1904); Wakefield v. Newell, 12 R. I. 75, 77 (1878), where the court said in Johnson
“[t]hat no one has a right to collect surface water in any considerable quantity upon his own premises and then turn the same in a concentrated form upon the premises of his neighbor in such a manner as to cause him damage. Not that an owner of land may not so change the grade or surface thereof as to cause surface water to flow in a different direction from what it did before the natural contour thereof was changed, for this such owner doubtless may lawfully do. But he may not collect and concentrate such water, by means of drains or otherwise, and turn it upon his neighbor’s land in a volume * * *"
and in Wakefield:
“* * * mere neglect by an individual to retain on his own land water which, falling there, would naturally flow onto his neighbor’s land, is no cause of action, unless he first accumulates it by artificial means so as considerably to increase the volume and detrimental effect with which it would flow on his neighbor’s land.”