Horton v. Inhabitants of North Attleboro

• Decision Date: 10 January 1939
• Citation: 19 N.E.2d 15,302 Mass. 137
• Parties: HORTON v. INHABITANTS OF NORTH ATTLEBORO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

302 Mass. 137

19 N.E.2d 15

HORTON

v.INHABITANTS OF NORTH ATTLEBORO. ^*

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

Jan. 10, 1939.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Bristol County; Goldberg, Judge.

Action of contract or tort by Earle R. Horton against the Inhabitants of North Attleboro, for breach of warranty that water supplied would be fit for drinking, and for negligence in supplying poor water. To review instructions and refusals to instruct after verdict was returned for defendant, plaintiff brings exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.A. E. Whittemore and L. McClennen, both of Boston, for plaintiff.

E. M. Dangel, of Boston, W. A. Swift, of Taunton, P. F. Armstrong, of North Attleboro, and G. A. Goldstein, of Boston, for defendant.

LUMMUS, Justice.

This case relates to the plumbo-solvency of water, that is, the capacity of carbon dioxide, found to some extent in all natural water, to dissolve lead while water stands in or passes through lead pipe, and thus to render the water poisonous. Three tenths of a part in a million, or three parts in ten millions, is adopted by the United States Department of Health as the maximum amount of lead which may safely be in drinking water. Four parts of lead in a million make drinking water positively dangerous. There was evidence that thirty parts of carbon dioxide in a million makes it dangerous to conduct water through lead pipes, and twenty parts of carbon dioxide in a million constitute the limit of safety.

The defendant is engaged in the business of supplying water to householders, including the plaintiff, and to others, for a consideration. It has the same responsibilities in contract and tort with respect to that business as any private person or corporation engaged in the same business. Pearl v. Revere, 219 Mass. 604, 107 N.E. 417;Bolster v. Lawrence, 225 Mass. 387, 390, 114 N.E. 722, L.R.A.1917B, 1285;Lyons v. Lowell, 239 Mass. 310, 131 N.E. 860;Sloper v. Quincy, Mass., 16 N.E.2d 14;Oakes Mfg. Co. v. New York, 206 N.Y. 221, 228,99 N.E. 540, 42 L.R.A.,N.S., 286.

In August, 1933, the plaintiff applied to the defendant for a supply of water at his house. The regulations of the defendant permitted lead pipe to be used from the property line at the sidewalk to the meter inside the house. The regulations provided that the pipe, called the service pipe, must be completely installed before being connectedwith the supply pipe at the property line, that the service pipe must not be covered over with earth until inspected by the water department of the defendant, and that the work on the service pipe must be done under the direction and with the approval of the superintendent of the water works of the defendant.

The plaintiff employed a licensed plumber, who as an independent contractor installed a three-quarter inch lead service pipe from the property line to the meter, a distance of one hundred forty-five feet. A foreman of the defendant's water board, pursuant to the regulations and acting under general instructions from the board, duly inspected the service pipe as it lay open in the trench, knew that it was lead, and approved the installation. The defendant installed twenty-seven feet of similar pipe from its main in the street to the property line and made the connection at that place between the two pipes, at what is called the water gate, where apparently there is a shut-off. The plaintiff's water supply thus flowed from the main to the meter through one hundred seventy-two feet of lead pipe. Only one of the twenty-four hundred residences supplied with water by the defendant has a longer flow through lead pipe. Apart from the plaintiff's house and one other, the greatest length of such flow is one hundred feet. But a flow of as much as twenty-seven feet from the main to the property line is common among the defendant's customers. Lead pipe is almost universally used for the pipes from the main to the water gate and beyond that to the meter in the cases of all the defendant's residential consumers. On September 19, 1933, the defendant began to supply water to the plaintiff.

From that time the plaintiff's health, which had been good, began to decline. On July 20, 1934, his trouble was diagnosed as lead poisoning. The evidence warranted a finding that it was caused by drinking water supplied by the defendant at the plaintiff's house. Samples of water that had stood in the pipes for three hours contained four parts of lead in a million. Samples of water that merely flowed through the pipes contained from one and one-half parts to two and one-quarter parts of lead in a million. A sample of water that had stood in the pipes over night showed more than eight parts of lead in a million. Each sample showed thirty parts in a million of carbon dioxide.

The defendant had never received any complaint, prior to July 20, 1934, of carbon dioxide or lead in its water. The water was of normal color and taste, and displayed no abnormality upon ordinary observation. Analysis of the water supplied to various other consumers showed no excessive amount of lead. No member of the defendant's water board knew, before July 20, 1934, that the water supply contained carbon dioxide or lead, or that carbon dioxide in any quantity made water dangerous for drinking if conveyed through lead. But the State Department of Public Health in 1900 had published in its report a description of an epidemic of lead poisoning in several towns in the Commonwealth caused by carbon dioxide in water, and standard textbooks published between 1920 and 1933 recognized the danger.

The plaintiff on October 15, 1934, brought this action of contract or tort. The first count declares upon a warranty that the water supplied would be such as would be fit for drinking after passing through the lead pipes used by the plaintiff. The second count is for negigence. At the trial the jury returned a verdict for the defendant on each count. The case comes here on exceptions of the plaintiff to certain instructions and refusals to instruct.

On the first count for breach of warranty, the judge instructed the jury that the water was sold and delivered by the defendant at the water gate at the property line; that if the water at that point was fit for human consumption the defendant would not be liable though after passing that point it might become unfit; and that if the water was unfit at that point the defendant would be liable on its warranty of fitness only for injury caused to the plaintiff by the lead that was in the water at that point. The each of these propositions of law the plaintiff excepted. The plaintiff excepted to the refusal to give the following instructions: ‘1. The defendant in supplying water for domestic uses impliedly warranted that it was fit therefor when consumed through pipes of a kind approved by the defendant's authorized representative. 2. When the defendant required that water which is sold for drinking purposes be conducted through pipe of iron, tin or lead, it expressed to the plaintiff its approval of lead pipe.’

The judge, without objection or exception from either party, charged in substance in the instructions already stated that the defendant was bound by an implied warranty under the sales act, G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 106, § 17(1) of which reads as follows: ‘Where the buyer, expressly or by implication, makes known to the seller the particular purpose for which the goods are required, and it appears that the buyer relies on the seller's skill or judgment, whether he be the grower or manufacturer or not, there is an implied warranty that the goods shall be reasonably fit for such purpose.’ It could readily be found, if not ruled on the undisputed facts, that the plaintiff made known to the defendant that the water was to be used for purposes which included drinking, and that the plaintiff relied on the defendant's skill to furnish him pure water. But the weight of authority is to the effect that that provision of the sales act does not apply to the furnishing of a supply of water through pipes. Canavan v. Mechanicville, 229 N.Y. 473, 128 N.E. 882, 13 A.L.R. 1123;Green v. Ashland Water Co., 101 Wis. 258, 77 N.W. 722,43 L.R.A. 117, 70 Am.St.Rep. 911;Pennsylvania Railroad v. Lincoln Trust Co., 91 Ind.App. 28, 35, 167 N.E. 721,170 N.E. 92;Hayes v. Torrington Water Co., 88 Conn. 609, 612, 92 A. 406.

We do not decide the question. The basic ruling of the judge, made without objection or exception, that there was an implied warranty under the sales act, became the law of the trial, and the instructions and requested instructions brought here on exceptions are to be considered upon the assumption that that basic ruling was correct. Tompkins v. Quaker Oats Co., 239 Mass. 147, 150, 131 N.E. 456;Noble v. American Express Co., 234 Mass. 536, 539, 125 N.E. 598;Murphy v. Hanright, 238 Mass. 200, 203, 204, 130 N.E. 204;Morel v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, 238 Mass. 392, 393,...