Court Opinion

ID: 9671173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:32:20.554093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.474339
License: Public Domain

Gage, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the result reached by the majority, which accepts *147strict liability for municipal defendants in trespass-nuisance cases.
First, as a primary matter, the majority opinion correctly indicates that in a note in Peterman v Dep’t of Natural Resources, 446 Mich 177, 205, n 42; 521 NW2d 499 (1994), our Supreme Court stated that negligence was “not a necessary element” of a trespass-nuisance cause of action. However, I believe that the Court’s comments in note 42 are dicta. The Court ultimately found that the trespass-nuisance doctrine did not apply because there was no physical intrusion in that case. Id. at 207. Therefore, I believe that we are not obligated to follow the Supreme Court’s analysis of the issue in Peterman because the note is not “germane to the determination of the parties’ respective interests.” See O’Dess v Grand Trunk W R Co, 218 Mich App 694, 700; 555 NW2d 261 (1996).
In the Supreme Court opinion cited in the note, Robinson v Wyoming Twp, 312 Mich 14; 19 NW2d 469 (1945), the trial court denied the defendant’s motion for summary dismissal of the plaintiffs’ complaint, denied the defendant’s motion for judgment non obstante veredicto after a jury found for the plaintiffs, and denied defendant’s motion for a new trial. On appeal, the defendant argued that the plaintiffs were required to allege and prove negligence to establish a prima facie case. The Supreme Court disagreed, noting without citation to prior authority, that in a lawsuit alleging trespass, “evidence of negligence on the part of the agents and servants of the defendant was not necessary in order to establish a prima facie case. Negligence is not a necessary element of this cause of action.” Id. at 23-24. However, the Robinson Court also quoted from Cooley on Torts (2d ed), *148p 680, the rule that “there is imposed upon a person who collects water in an artificial reservoir an obligation to use care ‘proportioned to the danger of injury from the escape.’ ” In determining that the defendant township was not immune from liability, the Court noted: “From the evidence in the case at bar the jury could find that the township of Wyoming had so constructed its park and lake that the flooding of plaintiffs’ property was a natural result from surplus water flowing out of the breakthrough in the embankment.” Robinson, supra at 25. Thus, it does not appear that that the Supreme Court in Robinson held the township defendant strictly liable for the plaintiffs’ damages, despite the often-repeated holding that negligence is not a necessary element of a prima facie case of trespass.
Moreover, other opinions from our Supreme Court appear to provide that some element of wrongdoing must be established to find a municipal defendant liable for trespass-nuisance. For example, in Seaman v City of Marshall, 116 Mich 327, 329-330; 74 NW 484 (1898), the Supreme Court noted:
We are of the opinion that there may be a right of action where an injuiy results from a sewer, although built with all due care, and in strict conformity to the plan adopted by the council. Such liability is recognized where it is permitted, to collect water and discharge it upon the lands of a private person. . . .
Upon the uncontradicted testimony, we are able to say that the city of Marshall caused an accumulation of water that would not have occurred but for its street gutters, and that by reason of the inadequacy of the outlet, or its stoppage, this water overflowed the gutter upon plaintiff’s premises, to his injury. There is no doubt of the authority of the city to establish a system of drainage for the benefit *149of the highway and the citizens, and it cannot be said that it must be sufficient for every possible emergency. But the city is required to use due caution, and if, through its negligence in not providing reasonably efficacious means to take care of the water that it should reasonably eocpect to accumulate by reason of its gutters, a person is injured by the overflow upon his premises of water collected by the sewers, and brought to such premises, and which would not otherwise have invaded them, the city is liable for the damages. [Emphasis added.]
Similarly, Herro v Chippewa Co Rd Comm’rs, 368 Mich 263; 118 NW2d 271 (1962), involves a suit for a wrongful death in which the plaintiffs decedent died in a summer house, which had been upended and hurled into a ravine by rising floodwater after a particularly heavy rainfall. The decedent became trapped in the sand and drowned after the water rose slowly around her. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant, which had completed the installation of a culvert and the reinforcement of roads in the area twenty months before the drowning, knowingly violated its duty to construct and maintain its roads and culverts to provide adequate drainage of accumulated rainwater to prevent flooding. The Supreme Court, finding that plaintiff had stated an actionable claim, overturned the lower court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendant.
I believe that in each of these cases, the Supreme Court found some element of wrongful or tortious conduct by the defendant before establishing liability. Although the cases recognize that there is no governmental immunity when a plaintiff successfully pleads and proves a trespass-nuisance by a public defendant, none of these cases calls for strict liability for a *150municipal defendant based on the construction of a sewer system or other public works project.
The present case was sent to the jury for damages only. Liability on the part of defendant was presumed under the reasoning adopted by the majority. I would reverse the judgment for plaintiffs on the basis of the trial court’s erroneous ruling that plaintiffs did not need to prove any wrongful or tortious conduct to establish defendant’s liability. If defendant chooses to pursue an additional appeal, I would urge our Supreme Court to accept its application to resolve the apparent controversy concerning whether a public defendant can be held strictly liable for a trespass-nuisance or whether the plaintiff must establish some level of wrongdoing on the part of the defendant.