Junior College Dist. v. City of St. Louis
| Citation | 149 S.W.3d 442 |
| Decision Date | 12 October 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. SC 85583.,SC 85583. |
| Parties | The JUNIOR COLLEGE DISTRICT OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Missouri |
Patricia A. Hageman, Edward J. Hanlon, Mark E. Lawson, St. Louis, for appellant.
Joe D. Jacobson, Martin M. Green, Allen P. Press, Fernando Bermudez, Clayton, for respondent.
The Junior College District of St. Louis (the College) brought a negligence action against the city of St. Louis (the City) for damages arising out of a 1997 flood of part of the college campus caused by water escaping from the College's fire suppression water pipe running between the College and the City's water main. Under stipulated facts, the trial court found the City's water division had a duty to keep water shut-off valves owned by the College accessible, that the water division was negligent in not marking or warning where the shut-off valves were located under the paved street, and that the water division employees were negligent in not shutting off the flow of water more quickly.
This Court holds that the City water division had no common law duty to keep the shut-off valve accessible, or to assist the College in locating the valve and stopping the flow of water, because the line, shut-off valve, and stop box were part of the College's private property line rather than part of the City water line. Further, the stipulated facts do not show that the City contracted to maintain the valves or to keep them accessible, nor that the City otherwise undertook this duty. Judgment in favor of the College is reversed and the case is remanded with directions to enter judgment in favor of the City.
The parties tried this case to the trial court under a stipulation of facts. That stipulation shows that the College, a political subdivision of the State of Missouri, constructed its Forest Park campus in the early 1960s. The campus is located in the City, just south of Highway 40 and east of Hampton Avenue. During construction of the campus, the College installed two underground water service lines. The lines, which were wholly owned by the College, ran from the College to the City water main running down Oakland Avenue. One line was the main water supply line for the campus ("supply line"); the other, a fire suppression line ("fire line"), was located six feet away.
Then, as now, each line supplied water solely to the College. When the College installed the lines, it obtained a permit from the City to connect the two lines to the City's main and to install a "stop box," containing a shut-off valve, for each line. The shut-off valve, as its name implies, is used to shut off the flow of water to a water line. Both stop boxes were located on the College's water lines, not on the City's main itself or at the junction of the main with the College's water lines. In fact, when originally installed, the stop boxes were located under the right-of-way at the northern edge of the campus, rather than under the paved portion of the street. Access to the stop boxes, and the valves housed within them, was by means of a manhole and manhole cover set on the right-of-way. Since the completion of construction, the City, through its water division, has sold water to the College for profit and billed the College on a quarterly basis for water supplied to the College's two lines. According to the stipulation, neither line received or needed maintenance from the time of installation until the time of the flood.
Sometime between construction and 1987, the City widened Oakland Avenue so that the stop boxes for the College's two water lines were no longer located under the right-of-way next to Oakland Avenue but instead were located below a portion of the paved street area of Oakland Avenue itself. According to the stipulation, the parties do not know whether either of the manhole covers over the two stop boxes were raised and left visible at the time of the street widening or were paved over.
In 1987, when Oakland Avenue was repaved, its grade was slightly raised. Accordingly, the height of the manhole cover over the stop box covering the College's supply line was raised to street level by affixing one or more steel collars to the top of the manhole. The parties do not know whether the College, the City, or a third party raised this manhole cover. But, for reasons unknown by the parties, the manhole cover over the College's fire line — the line that later burst — was not raised. It was paved over.
The parties agree that neither the City street department nor the City water division gave the College any notice or warning that the fire line manhole had been paved over, nor did the City mark the location of the paved-over manhole. Neither the City nor the College made any attempt from at least 1987 until 1997 to uncover the fire line manhole. It remained buried under Oakland Avenue, not visible from the street's surface.
The manholes are located directly in front of the College. The water shut-off valves and the stop boxes to which they provide access belong to the College, and they were originally installed by the College. The location of the valves, stop boxes, and original manhole covers are shown on the College's engineering drawings for the lines. In 1997, the College kept a copy of these engineering drawings in an office located in the College's basement. No employees of the College in 1997 were immediately aware of the location of the shut-off valves or stop boxes.
On October 23, 1997, at 3:00 p.m., the College's fire line ruptured, and water began flowing out of the line and flooding the campus. It is undisputed that the break occurred in the College-owned service line, not in the City's water main to which the service line connected. Unlike the case with many residential customers, the City's agreement to supply water to the College did not include an insurance provision to maintain this line. For this reason, the parties stipulated that the College was responsible for the initial break and for the first $1,005,506.00 in damages caused in the flooding that resulted from 3:00 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. due to the initial break in the College's fire line.
At about 3:10 p.m., College maintenance employees discovered the flooding water, went to Oakland Avenue, opening the manhole covering the supply line and shut off the water flowing in that line. But, because the break was not in that line but rather in the fire line, the flooding continued. Although careful review of the College's own engineering drawings would have shown that a separate fire suppression line was in place and had its own shut-off valve, College employees could not review those drawings because the basement office in which the drawings were kept was already flooded.
The College called the City's water division and also called a private plumber to help. The City water division employees arrived at 3:25 p.m. The water division employees also had a copy of the engineering drawings, and these drawings, like those in the College's basement, showed the existence of the fire line and the placement of the stop box and valve under what had become the paved area of Oakland Avenue. Neither the City water division employees nor College employees noticed these aspects of the drawings. They closed all other valves, but did not find or close the valve to the fire line. As a result, the fire line remained open, and water flooded the campus unabated.
At 5:00 p.m., with the fire line still open and the manhole cover and stop box still undiscovered, the City water division employees were called to respond to an unrelated water main break. They took their engineering drawings with them when they left to attend to this emergency. After fixing the broken main, they returned to the campus at 6:30 p.m. The College had still been unable to discover the source of the flooding.
At about 8:00 p.m., City employees located the fire line through the use of the drawings and a flow meter provided by the City and with the assistance of the private plumber. They broke through the pavement, uncovering the hidden manhole cover, and shut off the valve at 8:30 p.m., thus ending the flooding. In total, approximately 500,000 gallons of water flooded the College's campus.
The College filed a three-count petition against the City. It argued that the City is liable for $5,825,161.00 in additional damage to the campus that the parties stipulated occurred between the time the College shut off the main water supply line valve at 3:20 p.m. and when the plumber shut off the fire line at 8:30 p.m., because the negligence of the City's water division caused those additional damages. The trial court found that the City had a duty to keep the shut-off valves or stop boxes accessible, or that it should have marked their location, and that it breached these duties. Further, it found no contributory fault on the part of the College, held the City liable for the full claimed $5,825,161.00 in damages, and awarded the College $2,434,596.30 in prejudgment interest from October 23, 1997, to June 14, 2002.1 The City appealed to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, which transferred the case to this Court, after opinion, due to the general interest and importance of the issues involved. Mo. Const. art. V, sec. 10.
Appellate review of a court-tried case is generally governed by Murphy v. Carron, 536 S.W.2d 30 (Mo. banc 1976), which states, "the decree or judgment of the trial court will be sustained by the appellate court unless there is no substantial evidence to support it, unless it is against the weight of the evidence, unless it erroneously declares the law, or unless it erroneously applies the law." Id. at 32. When, as here, a court-tried case is submitted on stipulated facts, however, then the only question before the...
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