Sigurdson v. City of Seattle
| Decision Date | 05 January 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 33341,33341 |
| Citation | 292 P.2d 214,48 Wn.2d 155 |
| Parties | Lena SIGURDSON, Respondent, v. The CITY OF SEATTLE, a municipal corporation, Appellant. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
A. C. Van Soelen, C. C. McCullough, Seattle, for appellant.
Kumm, Copass & Cook, Seattle, for respondent.
In 1936, the Works Progress Administration, a Federal agency, constructed and installed a drainage system on property owned by King county, located in Seattle between Alki avenue and the intersection of Sunset avenue and West Seattle street. The system extends westward from a spring below Sunset avenue, and empties into Puget Sound. After the drainage system was constructed, the maintenance thereof was assumed by the city.
The terrain at the base of the drain, from Alki avenue east, is comparatively level for one hundred twenty feet, the depth of Lena Sigurdson's lot, except that, near the rear, there is a rise of approximately ten feet. From the rear of her lot, the elevation increases abruptly approximately two hundred ten feet in a distance of approximately two hundred sixty feet.
The aforementioned drainage system consists of an eight-inch wooden pipe running from Puget Sound, beneath Alki avenue, eastward across the Sigurdson lot, connecting with a sand box approximately one hundred feet to the rear and east of her property, thence to a second sand box, in a natural ravine, approximately sixty feet further east up the incline. The spring is located approximately sixty feet up the ravine from the second sand box. Spring and surface waters flow down the ravine, through the two sand boxes, into the eight-inch wooden pipe, and then out to Puget Sound.
The city maintains another drainage system in the area which drains the surface waters from Sunset avenue into the main line of the Arkansas street sewer at the intersection of Sunset avenue and West Seattle street. From this point, the sewer line extends westward approximately one hundred twenty feet down the steep incline to a point referred to as manhole 155, thence the line veers northwestwardly away from the property in question. The terrain at manhole 155 is such that any water which may escape from the sewer flows down a dry ravine and into the lower sand box. The soil in the area consists of a substratum of blue clay, an overlay of sandy soil, and a top soil composed primarily of leaf mold. The surface growth is underbrush and trees natural to the area.
The steepness of the terrain and the soil texture have presented a drainage and slide problem for many years. There were slides in that area in the years 1937, 1941, 1948, and 1950 which necessitated the city's repairing or replacing the drainage pipes when they were disrupted by the slides.
The drainage system subsequently failed on two occasions, January 6 and 22, 1954. On both occasions, the city made substantial repairs.
On February 12, 1954, the wooden drain pipe again broke or parted at a point located approximately sixty feet behind the Sigurdson property. Water gushed from the pipe at the break, and Miss Sigurdson notified the city before ten o'clock a. m. The city workmen who answered the call did not stop the flow of water from the breach, and permitted the water to saturate the hillside. At 4:55 a. m., February 13th, the slide occurred which caused extensive damage to the Sigurdson property.
An examination of the area at manhole 155, made shortly after the slide by an engineer employed by Miss Sigurdson, showed evidence of erosion or wash below the manhole, which flow was down the ravine to the lower sand box. There was no evidence of erosion or wash above the manhole. The testimony of the foreman for the city's engineering department corroborated the engineer's findings.
Lena Sigurdson commenced this action to recover the cost of repairs to her house and lot occasioned by the damage caused by the landslide. Her complaint alleged that the city was negligent in failing to maintain and keep in repair the drainage system, in failing to take reasonable precautions to prevent the saturation of the slope, and in failing to protect her property from damage occasioned by the slide. The city denied liability.
The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of twenty-six hundred dollars. From the judgment entered upon the verdict, the city has appealed, making seven assignments of error.
The first four assignments of error raise the issue of the sufficiency of the evidence to establish liability. Appellant's principal contention is that, since it did not install the drainage system, it is not responsible for it. Appellant further contends that, even though it did make certain repairs on the federally-installed drainage system, it is not liable if the repairs proved inadequate or if the repair work was negligently done, for the reason that it had no duty to perform any service to benefit only this privately owned property.
The basis of this action is negligence. Negligence, as applied to a municipality in the performance of a corporate or ministerial function, is an unintentional breach of a legal duty, causing damage reasonably foreseeable, without which breach the damage could not occur. Burr v. Clark, 1948, 30 Wash.2d 149, 190 P.2d 769. To establish negligence under this definition, issues of both law and fact are involved.
The legal issues are, (1) was the function a corporate or ministerial function upon which liability may be incurred, as opposed to a governmental function to which the rule of immunity applies, and (2) was there a legal duty on the part of the municipality to perform the act, the nonperformance of which is alleged to have caused the damage?
The factual issues are, (1) did the city, in the performance of its duty, if any, exercise ordinary and reasonable care, (2) did the failure to exercise reasonable care constitute a breach or failure of the duty to perform, (3) could the city reasonably foresee that such failure would cause damage or injury to another, and (4) was the failure to perform the duty the proximate cause of the damage?
With regard to the first question of law above set out, we have held that a municipality is liable for injuries resulting from negligence in the performance of ministerial and corporate acts relating to the improvement and maintenance of public streets. Bradshaw v. City of Seattle, 1953, 43 Wash.2d 766, 264 P.2d 265, 42 A.L.R.2d 800.
It is generally held that a municipality, in maintaining drains and sewers, acts in its corporate and ministerial capacity, and is liable for negligence resulting in injury relating thereto. 18 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3d ed.), 489, § 53.125.
We can see no substantial difference between the function of improving and maintaining public streets and that of improving and maintaining drains such as we are concerned with here, and which are necessarily ancillary to the function of maintaining the streets.
We therefore conclude that the improvement and maintenance of the drainage system here in question was a corporate and ministerial function.
The second question of law is, did the city owe a duty to maintain the drainage system in question?
The appellant city contends that there is no such duty, and cites Wiley v. City of Aberdeen, 1923, 123 Wash. 539, 212 P. 1049. The Wiley case determined that the replacement of a culvert on private property was a private rather than a public purpose, and that the city was without jurisdiction to expend public funds to accomplish a private purpose. In the Wiley case, the city had never maintained or repaired the existing culvery. In the case at bar, the city had maintained the drainage system for eighteen years. The area is admittedly a slide area and, without the drain, it well could constitute a hazard to the public streets. An assistant city engineer, in his testimony, referred to this hazard as a nuisance.
Sunset avenue traverses the crest of the area, and Alki avenue is located at the base of the steep incline. It is clear that the prevention of slides from below Sunset avenue and the prevention of slides onto Alki avenue are necessary to the maintenance of these streets and are, therefore, public purposes. This drain is a preventive measure against slides. The drain controls and concentrates the flow of water from the area east of Alki avenue into a single pipe which continues beneath the street to Puget Sound. Had the water been permitted to flow unrestrained down the hillside, the owners of the private property in the comparatively flat area below, in the performance of their common-law right to fend off surface waters, would have forced the water to flow around their properties and onto Alki avenue. Thus the flow would have reached the avenue from several locations and the city then would have been presented with the problem of draining this water from the street. Being confronted with this problem, the city...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Haslund v. City of Seattle
...State, 85 Wash.2d 154, 159, 531 P.2d 299 (1975); Wells v. Vancouver, 77 Wash.2d 800, 803, 467 P.2d 292 (1970); Sigurdson v. Seattle, 48 Wash.2d 155, 158--59, 292 P.2d 214 (1956); W. Prosser, Law of Torts §§ 30--33, 37 (4th ed. The need for instructions accurately setting forth the legal bas......
-
Pruitt v. Douglas County
...maintaining residential drainage systems. Phillips v. King County, 136 Wash.2d 946, 965, 968 P.2d 871 (1998); Sigurdson v. City of Seattle, 48 Wash.2d 155, 159, 292 P.2d 214 (1956). Where the municipality assumes the maintenance duties and control over the drainage system, it has a duty to ......
-
Slemp v. City of North Miami
...than governmental and gives rise to a duty); Fuller v. City of Rutland, 122 Vt. 284, 171 A.2d 58 (1961) (same); Sigurdson v. City of Seattle, 48 Wash.2d 155, 292 P.2d 214 (1956) (same). The majority notes that "[t]here has never been a common law duty of care to individual property owners t......
-
Phillips v. King County, 66236-3
...situations there could be liability on the part of a county for failure to maintain a public drainage system. Sigurdson v. City of Seattle, 48 Wash.2d 155, 162, 292 P.2d 214 (1956); see also Peterson, 41 Wash.2d at 915, 252 P.2d 797. However, there is no allegation in this case that lack of......
-
Chapter §11.2 Rights and Duties With Regard to Surface Waters
...court acknowledged that faulty maintenance of assumed facilities could form a basis for liability, citing Sigurdson v. City of Seattle, 48 Wn.2d 155, 162, 292 P.2d 214 (1956), and Peterson v. King County, 41 Wn.2d 907, 915, 252 P.2d 797 Even though faulty maintenance was not alleged in Phil......
-
Table of Cases
...(1988): 11.5 Seattle City Light v. Dep't of Transp., 98 Wn.App. 165, 989 P.2d 1164 (1999): 6.10(2), 14.4(1) Sigurdson v. City of Seattle, 48 Wn.2d 155, 292 P.2d 214 (1956): 11.2(2), 11.6(2) Simms v. Allstate Ins. Co., 27 Wn.App. 872, 621 P.2d 155 (1980): 17.14(1) Singleton v. Frost, 108 Wn.......
-
Chapter §11.6 Effect of Government Regulations: Growth Management, Drainage Controls, and Water Pollution Control
...of liability for resulting damage. Damage could also result from a failure to properly maintain existing facilities. Sigurdson v. Seattle, 48 Wn.2d 155, 158-60, 292 P.2d 214 (1956) (municipality that assumes control and management of a drainage system is liable for injuries resulting from i......