St. Francis Drainage Dist. v. Austin

• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: ROBINSON
• Citation: St. Francis Drainage Dist. v. Austin, 296 S.W.2d 668, 227 Ark. 167 (Ark. 1956)
• Decision Date: 17 December 1956
• Docket Number: No. 5-1082,5-1082
• Parties: ST. FRANCIS DRAINAGE DISTRICT et al., Appellants, v. A. J. AUSTIN et al., Appellees.

Page 668

296 S.W.2d 668

227 Ark. 167

ST. FRANCIS DRAINAGE DISTRICT et al., Appellants, v. A. J. AUSTIN et al., Appellees.

No. 5-1082.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Dec. 17, 1956.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 14, 1957.

Cecil Grooms and Kirsch, Cathey & Brown, Paragould, for appellants.

Oscar Fendler and J. W. Steinsick, Blytheville, for appellees.

ROBINSON, Justice.

This is a suit by appellees for daimages to crops caused by the appellant, St. Francis Drainage District, using poison known as 2, 4-D to kill willows growing on the drainage ditch right-of-way. Some of the poison drifted through the air and came in contact with some of the crops being grown by the appellees on land adjoining the drainage ditch. The cause was tried to a jury and there were verdicts totalling about $15,000 for appellees. The Drainage District has appealed.

The cause was submitted to the jury on the theory of whether the farmers, appellees, were entitled to recover under Article 2, § 22, of the Constitution of Arkansas. The court instructed the jury as follows:

'Gentlemen of the jury, the plaintiffs, Austin, Reese, Riggs, Brown, Wells, Kitchen Farms, Company, and Barnes bring this cause of action against the defendant St. Francis Drainage District to recover compensation for crops which they allege were taken or damaged for public use by the defendant Drainage District. The defendant Drainage District denies that said property was taken or damaged for public use within the meaning of the law applicable to this type of proceedings.

'You are instructed that Section 22, Article 2, of the Constitution of Arkansas reads: 'The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction; and private property shall not be taken, appropriated or damaged for public use, without just compensation therefor.' You are further instructed that the St. Francis Drainage District is legally required to maintain the drainage ditches in its drainage system and the law has given this district the right to take private property, if necessary, to perform maintenance work upon its ditches. Therefore, if you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that the action of the St. Francis Drainage District was necessary and proper and if you further find that the Drainage District or its employees in doing this maintenance work acted without negligence, and that while so acting or maintaining said ditches, it was necessary to actually take or damage property belonging to the plaintiffs for public use, then your verdict will be for the plaintiffs.

'On the other hand, you are told that a drainage district cannot be held liable for the damage caused by the negligence of its agents and employees. Therefore, if you find that the damage, if any, sued for by the plaintiffs resulted from the negligence of the agents or employees of the Drainage District, you are instructed that none of the plaintiffs whose damage, if any, was caused by such negligence, can recover against the Drainage District.'

The appellant contends that Article 2, § 22, of the Constitution has no application because the crops were not damaged 'for public use'; that the cause of action sounds in tort, and that, therefore, there can be no recovery against the Drainage District.

Appellees do not claim that the District is liable in tort. They say no tort was committed; that the jury so found; but they contend that the crops were damaged for public use, and, for that reason, the damage is compensable under Article 2, § 22, of the Constitution. It is true the jury found that there was no negligence on the part of the District, its agents or servants. But, the poison was not intentionally sprayed on the crops, and there is no evidence that in spraying the willows, on the Drainage District right-of-way, it was inevitable that some of the poison would drift over onto the crops. In fact, it appears that the poison was used by the District in the years 1950 to 1953, inclusive, with practically no damage. There was just one small claim of $15 during those years; the appellees claim their crops were damaged in the year 1954.

It would be stretching the imagination to the breaking point to say that the District used the crops or used the land on which the crops were growing. By a process of elimination justified by the jury verdict, and the undisputed evidence, the posion must have drifted on the crops accidentally. This does not constitute a use of the crops by the District within the meaning of the Constitution. It would be entirely unreasonable to say that under the law of this State the District is not liable if its agents, servants and employees negligently permitted poison to get on the crops, but that the District is liable if the poison used by the District got on the crops accidentally. To say that the District would be liable for such an accident, would be to say that the District would be liable if one of its trucks accidentally ran into another car and damaged it.

Appellees have cited many Arkansas cases in their excellent brief, but, in our opinion, none of the cases sustain their position, bearing in mind that appellees' crops were not intentionally, inevitably, or negligently damaged, and the damage was not of a permanent nature. Hot Springs Railway Co. v. Williamson, 45 Ark. 429, was a suit for damages by a property owner against a private corporation for injury to private property caused by the construction of a railroad embankment down the center of a street. The injury to the Williamson property was of a permanent nature, and whatever was done cannot be said to have been accidental in any sense of the word.

McLaughlin v. City of Hope, 107 Ark. 442, 155 S.W. 910, 912, 47 L.R.A., N.S., 137. This case went off on a demurrer which admitted the property involved had been rendered unsuitable for the operation of a mill due to the discharge of sewage in a stream used by the mill in its operation. The court said: 'Since the city's action in constructing its sewer system so as to turn the sewage into said branch indicates an intention to acquire a permanent right to continue to so use it and pollute the stream, the damages to the owner should be assessed upon that basis and as though the city were proceeding to acquire it under its power of eminent domain.'

Hogge v. Drainage District No. 7, 181 Ark. 564, 26 S.W.2d 887, 889. A demurrer admitted the lands had been damaged for public use. Land had been flooded and the owner was entitled to compensation. The flooding of the land amounted to a taking, and the court emphasized the fact that the damage was of a permanent nature. Again and again in this case,...