Johnson v. Rouchleau-Ray Iron Land Co.

• Decision Date: 07 June 1918
• Docket Number: No. 20688.,20688.
• Parties: JOHNSON v. ROUCHLEAU-RAY IRON LAND CO. et al.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

140 Minn. 289

168 N.W. 1

JOHNSON

v.ROUCHLEAU-RAY IRON LAND CO. et al.

No. 20688.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 7, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, St. Louis County; William A. Cant and Herbert A. Dancer, Judges.

Action by August Johnson against the Rouchleau-Ray Iron Land Company, the Dean Iron Company, the Arthur Mining Company, and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants Dean Iron Company and the Arthur Mining Company appeal. Reversed.

Syllabus by the Court

To recover damages for injury to real property, resulting from negligence, the owner must wait until the injury or damage has actually happened.

Damages, based upon apprehension of future injury to real property, by an act yet to happen, is too remote and speculative. Abbott, MacPherran, Lewis & Gilbert and Baldwin, Baldwin & Holmes, all of Duluth, for appellants.

Archer & Pickering, of Virginia, Minn., for respondent.

QUINN, J.

Action to recover damages for injury to real property. Plaintiff recovered a verdict of $400 against the defendants Arthur Mining Company and Dean Iron Mining Company. From a judgment entered thereon this appeal was taken.

The village of Spina is situated on the Mesaba Range, which is one of the principal iron mining districts of Northern Minnesota. A large part of the iron mining in this region is done by the system known as open pit mining. This system necessitates a stripping of the earth and other material overlaying the ore and depositing the same in dump piles in convenient localities. The defendant Arthur Iron Mining Company held a mining lease upon the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 15, township 58 north, range 19 west, from the owners thereof. During the summer of 1912, that company entered into a contract with Butler Bros. for the stripping of a certain mine near by, and accordingly thereafter, and prior to the month of December, 1915, the strippings therefrom were placed by Butler Bros. in a dump upon the tract of land above described, which lies immediately across the highway on the west line of the village of Spina. Thereafter the defendant Dean Iron Mining Company became the owner of such lease by assignment. The plaintiff owns lots 6 and 7 in block 5 in the village of Spina, upon which is situated, at a distance of 206 feet from the toe or base of the dump in question, an 11 room two-story dwelling, in which he resides with his family. On June 13, 1916, near the northerly part of the east end of the dump a large mass of soft wet mortarlike material gushed out from the bottom of the dump across the highway and a distance of over 200 feet down one of the streets of said village, carrying with it for about 50 feet several houses with which it came in contact. The property of the plaintiff was not located upon this street, and was in...