Court Opinion

ID: 9461443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:14:40.084307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:54.573235
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
While I concur in part with the opinion of the court, I must respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that liability may be predicated on a violation of the city sewer use ordinance and from its holding that the district court should reexamine its ruling with respect to the defendant’s Texas plant absent any evidence showing a similarity of the two operations.
I
I think it of some consequence that the factual background of the case concerning dates be stated in slightly more detail than is done by the majority opinion, which to me lumps together whatever liability there may be.
Schlitz produced its first beer at the Winston-Salem brewery about July 1, 1969. At that time, there was no sewer use ordinance, that is to say, no limitation was placed by the city upon the character, quantity or strength of waste which could be put into the sewer system.
On February 2, 1970, the sewer use ordinance referred to in the opinion was enacted to become effective May 1, 1970. The city did not advise Schlitz or any other industrial user of the ordinance and of the necessity of obtaining a permit until June 11, 1970. As the majority opinion sets out, the waste containing more than 2500 ppm BOD from Schlitz has not continued after April 1971. So any liability of Schlitz under any theory must be limited by the April 1971 date, and any liability based on an unlawful discharge into the system must commence with the May or June 1970 date.
II
Since there was no municipal ordinance or statute requiring Schlitz to connect to the sewer facility of Winston-Salem, and Schlitz was not within the city but rather in Forsyth County, I am in agreement with the majority opinion as it compares the relation of Schlitz and the city as that of a disposer of waste who has agreed with an independent contractor to have such waste disposed of.
With that in mind, I believe the proper rule is as stated in Page v. Sloan, supra, that if Schlitz knew, or if by the exercise of reasonable care might have ascertained that the city was not properly qualified to undertake the work, Schlitz may be held liable for the negligent act of the city. And I note this rule requires not only knowledge or lack of reasonable care on the part of Schlitz, but also the negligent act of the city in the disposal of the waste, or in the agreement so to do.
Ill
In my opinion, no violation of the sewer use ordinance was shown because of the construction placed on the ordinance by the city.
The last paragraph of § 23-4 allows the city to assist “industrial users” “in devising procedures and constructing equipment to reduce or eliminate . . . objectionable characteristics or properties which may not otherwise be discharged into the public sanitary sewers under § 23-2.” Thus, as the majority recites, the ordinance shows on its face that it was not meant for instantaneous compliance. At the very best, from the plaintiff’s viewpoint, it is ambiguous.
The uncontradicted and undenied testimony of the plaintiff’s witness Styers supports this conclusion:
“This is something that had never been developed before. It’s new for municipalities. It’s new for industries, and when you pass a law of this sort, you don’t the next morning go out and clamp a padlock on every industry in town. You have to give them some period of time in which they can comply with the ordinance. If we had done that, then we would have shut *478down just about every industry in Winston-Salem.”
Styers further stated:
“When we were making this ordinance, we knew — this came up quite a bit — we knew that on the date that the ordinance was passed, we could not expect these industries to be informed of their wastes, the characteristics of their wastes, and what they would have to do to their wastes. We knew that after we made tests and confronted them with the quantities of materials they were discharging, that they would have to hire engineers to construct or to design plants. They would have to hire contractors to build these facilities and to alter their characteristics of waste. And, therefore, in that ordinance, we provided for this interim period where the City would have the opportunity to give them the opportunity to do whatever was necessary to comply with the regulations.” 1 [Italics added]
It is then clear from the uncontradicted testimony that the city did not view the sewer use ordinance as requiring immediate compliance, but rather interpreted the set of ordinances as requiring reasonable efforts to comply. There is no evidence that Schlitz did not act in a reasonable manner in seeking to comply with the provisions after their passage; indeed, as the district court pointed out, the plaintiff’s own evidence showed Schlitz made a determined cooperative effort to comply with the ordinances.
The city officials, then, who were entrusted with the administration of the ordinance construed it as permitting time to comply.
Courts generally prefer an ordinary and practical construction of an ordinance, and the construction given an ordinance by those charged with the duty of applying its provisions and enforcing them prior to the controversy “is very persuasive.” 6 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3rd Ed. 1969) § 20.45; United States v. Cerecedo Hermanos y Compania, 209 U.S. 337, 339, 28 S.Ct. 532, 52 L.Ed. 821 (1908).
While the statement in the majority opinion that “[p]ublic officials have no more power to alter . . . private rights than the legislature chooses to give them,” is a correct abstract statement, in my opinion it should not be applied here. It does not take into account the chronological setting of events in this case, and does not take into account the construction the city placed on its own ordinance. Prior to 1970 there had been no ordinance so regulating waste placed into the system. Then, the ordinances in issue here were passed. Conceding that the acts and interpretations of the officials of the city may not be used to abrogate private rights, such contemporaneous acts and interpretations are admissible and important to the construction of such ordinances, and the determination of whether such ordinances have in fact been violated.
The general rule is that when dealing with the interpretation of an ambiguous city ordinance, one must consider contemporaneous interpretations of the ordinance by city officials, 6 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 20.45 (3rd Ed. 1969); Heeht Co. v. McLaughlin, 93 U.S. App.D.C. 382, 214 F.2d 212 (1954); Savings Bank of Rockville v. Wilcox, 117 Conn. 188, 167 A. 709 (1933).
An unambiguous ordinance should be interpreted on its face alone, but “in doubtful cases where the language of an ordinance is ambiguous, a contemporaneous construction adopted by the parties interested in the enforcement of the ordinance, while not controlling, is entitled to great weight, and is sometimes given an effect in the nature of estoppel or waiver with respect to the assertion of a different meaning.” 6 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3rd Ed. 1969) § 20.45.
Since it is clear to me that the construction placed by the city on its own ordinances was the only reasonable one (a contrary construction would have shut down about every industry in Winston-*479Salem), and that Sehlitz had complied with the ordinances as construed by the city authorities charged with their enforcement, I am of opinion liability should not be based upon a violation thereof.
IV
With the district judge, I see no connection between the Texas operation of Sehlitz and the North Carolina operation. If the operations were proven to be similar, then I think what Sehlitz knew about the Texas operation at the relevant times in the North Carolina affair might be admissible as evidence of knowledge. But I cannot find that the similarity of the operations has been proved. Therefore, I would not require the district court to reexamine its ruling that the evidence was irrelevant absent some proof of similarity of the Texas and North Carolina operations. “The determination of the relevancy of proof offered at the trial is a matter resting largely within the sound discretion of the trial court and is not ordinarily reviewable upon appeal.” Beaty Shopping Center v. Monarch Insurance Company of Ohio, 315 F.2d 467, 471 (4th Cir. 1963).

. Styers had been Superintendent of the Sewage Treatment Plant for the city.