Challis Irr. Co. v. State, 13531

• Decision Date: 22 May 1984
• Docket Number: No. 13531,13531
• Citation: 107 Idaho 338,689 P.2d 230
• Parties: CHALLIS IRRIGATION COMPANY, an Idaho corporation, Glendon Hunt, Gary Chamberlain, and Ralph Anderson, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. STATE of Idaho, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 230

689 P.2d 230

107 Idaho 338

CHALLIS IRRIGATION COMPANY, an Idaho corporation, Glendon Hunt, Gary Chamberlain, and Ralph Anderson, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. STATE of Idaho, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 13531.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

May 22, 1984.

Rehearing Granted Aug. 10, 1984.

Upon Rehearing Oct. 15, 1984.

Petition for Review Denied Dec. 21, 1984.

Jim Jones, Atty. Gen. by Stephen V. Goddard, Deputy Atty. Gen., and William B. Dillon III, Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game, Boise, and W. Marcus W. Nye, Racine, Olson, Nye, Cooper & Budge, Pocatello, for appellant; Stephen V. Goddard argued the appeal; William B. Dillon filed a brief in response to the petition for rehearing.

Dwight E. Baker, St. Clair, Hiller, Wood & McGrath, Idaho Falls, for plaintiffs-respondents.

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING

This opinion supersedes our prior opinion issued January 10, 1984, which is hereby withdrawn.

BURNETT, Judge.

This case presents a question of causation. We are asked to decide whether there is substantial evidence to support a jury finding that improper maintenance of a fish screen in an irrigation canal caused a break in the canal wall. This issue is raised by the State of Idaho, Department of Fish and Game, which installed and maintained the screen under a license granted by the Challis Irrigation Company, owner of the canal. The State had a contractual duty, under the terms of the license, to avoid obstructing the flow of water through the fish screen. The canal company and several of its member farmers sued the State, alleging that an obstruction at the fish screen had caused water to back up, breaking the canal bank. Upon verdicts in favor of the canal company and farmers, the State was adjudged liable for the resulting damage.

This case has proven vexatious on appeal. The causation issue, though simple in concept, is complex when viewed against an intricate--and in some respects enigmatic--record. In a prior, unreported opinion, we initially held that the jury's verdicts were unsupported by substantial evidence of causation. Judgments upon the verdicts were reversed. In response to a petition for rehearing, we have reexamined the entire record and have studied the detailed, supplemental briefs submitted by both sides. The causation issue has been presented exhaustively, and further argument upon rehearing is unnecessary. Upon reconsidering our prior opinion, we now conclude, for reasons set forth below, that the verdicts should be upheld.

In Part I of today's opinion we broadly outline the rules governing appellate review of the trial record in an appeal from judgments upon jury verdicts. We then set forth the pertinent facts from the record relating to the issue of causation. In Part II we focus upon the legal tests of proximate cause and upon the use of circumstantial evidence to meet those tests in this case.

I

Appellate review of a jury verdict is constrained by several well settled principles. With these constraints in mind, we turn to the record in the present case, noting the evidence which is undisputed or--if disputed--reasonably could have been viewed in favor of the irrigation company. The company's canal starts at a headgate on the Salmon River and runs at a slightly declining grade into a farming area. The fish screen is located in the canal roughly two miles below the headgate. The structure includes a trash rack in front of the screen, to catch debris floating down the canal. Approximately fifty feet in front of the trash rack, and along one side of the canal, the State has constructed an opening into a bypass channel which loops around the trash rack and fish screen, rejoining the canal on the downstream side. This bypass opening contains float-activated gates designed to open if clogging in the trash rack impedes the flow in the canal, causing the water to rise.

The general principle, initially articulated by I.C. § 13-219 (now repealed) and perpetuated by case law, is that a jury verdict will not be overturned if it is supported by substantial, although conflicting, evidence. E.g., Quincy v. Joint School Dist. No. 41, 102 Idaho 764, 640 P.2d 304 (1981). From this principle flow a number of closely related corollaries. A question of proximate cause is for the triers of fact to determine, and their determination will not be disturbed on appeal if supported by substantial evidence. Mann v. Gonzales, 100 Idaho 769, 605 P.2d 947 (1980). Where there is conflict as to the meaning of, or reasonable inferences to be drawn from, the evidence, the triers of fact should make the determination. Pierson v. Jones, 102 Idaho 82, 625 P.2d 1085 (1981). On appeal, the evidence in the record, and all reasonable inferences, are viewed in favor of the jury verdict. E.g., Henderson v. Cominco American, Inc., 95 Idaho 690, 518 P.2d 873 (1974).

The canal break in question occurred during the night of June 15 or in the early morning hours of June 16, 1974. During June the Salmon River rose to a record flood level. One of the canal company's witnesses testified that the river "had been on an increase for approximately five days" before June 16 and had "pretty well stabled out" on the 16th. When the river ran high, the canal headgate became filled with debris; but the river poured over or around the headgate and entered the canal. Although the precise quantity of water flowing in the canal before the break was not measured, it was estimated to be 175 cubic feet per second (cfs) or more--perhaps substantially more. A witness for the canal company later testified that the flow was greater than normal. The canal company could have used "spillboards" below the headgate to divert some of the water back to the river, but it did not do so.

The increased flow in the canal was accompanied by floating debris from the river. The debris began to accumulate against the trash rack in front of the fish screen. On June 14, a work crew from the State was dispatched to the scene. Four men worked all morning, and two men worked that afternoon, to clear the debris. On June 15, a crew of two men arrived. They noticed that debris had accumulated back to the bypass gates and was coming in about as fast as they could remove it. They also noticed that the water level in front of the trash rack was a few inches higher than the level below the fish screen. After clearing debris from about half the width of the channel, they quit and went to work elsewhere for the rest of the day.

That same afternoon a farmer, whose property was located down the canal from the fish screen, measured the water flow against a peg device on his property. He testified at trial that he found the flow to be normal. He also testified that late at night, he rechecked the peg, finding the water level to be somewhat below normal. The following morning, June 16, farmers in the area noticed that their irrigation systems were not working. Upon investigation they found that the canal had broken upstream, nearly a mile above the fish screen. A witness later testified that the break occurred at a "low point" in the canal--that is, at a place where the canal One observer who viewed the canal above the break point noted that "quite a lot of water" was flowing in the canal between the river and the break point on June 16; but he added, "I have seen more water than that in that canal." On the downstream side of the break point, farmers discovered a large amount of debris spread upon the bottom of the empty canal, directly in front of the trash rack. The debris occupied the full width of the canal and extended back to the bypass gates. An observer later testified that he saw silt accumulation along the canal banks just upstream from the trash rack twenty-one inches, or about 1.7 feet, higher than the normal water level. Because the normal depth was approximately 3.6 feet, this testimony suggested that the water in the canal had reached a depth of about 5.3 feet near the trash rack before the break occurred upstream. The same observer said he also saw a silt line near the break point "a good fifteen inches" above the normal water level.

had the least distance between a normal water level and the top of its banks.

At the bypass, one of the float-activated gates was found partially open. The others were found shut. The record does not indicate the exact water levels at which the floats were designed to open these gates; but the gates themselves were only 4.3 feet high. Presumably they were designed to open at a somewhat lower water level. An obvious anomaly, never explained at trial, was how the water could have reached a depth of 5.3 feet near the trash rack without tripping all of the bypass gates. There was no evidence that the gates had malfunctioned. On the other hand, although the gates had been visually checked, they had not been tested on or immediately before June 15. One of the State's witnesses explained that the gates were not routinely tested because any such test would cause a loss of fish into the bypass channel.

Upon this circumstantial evidence, the canal company and the State asked the jury to draw competing inferences. The canal company asserted that during the night of June 15-16, the trash rack had become so clogged that the water in the canal backed up; and that the increased depth attributable to clogging, when added to the existing flow, caused a canal bank to fail at the "low point" where the washout later was discovered. In contrast, the State contended that debris at the trash rack added little, if at all, to the water depth at the break point. Rather, the State urged that an abnormally high quantity of water entering the canal from the river caused the water level to rise until the canal bank failed.

To aid the jury in evaluating the evidence, the parties presented opinion testimony by two expert witnesses. The canal company's expert exhibited a diagram showing that if the water near the trash rack had increased to the level of 5.3 feet,...