Steele v. City of El Paso, 5851
| Citation | 417 S.W.2d 923 |
| Decision Date | 19 July 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 5851,5851 |
| Parties | Bruce STEELE et ux., Ind. and as Next Friends, etc., Appellants, v. The CITY OF EL PASO, Appellee. . El Paso |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Texas. Court of Civil Appeals of Texas |
Collins, Langford, Pine & Coldwell, Robert S. Pine, El Paso, for appellants.
Hardie, Grambling, Sims & Galatzan, Morris Galatzan, El Paso, for appellee.
The appellants brought this action to recover damages against appellee, City of El Paso, arising from their home having been flooded with sewage, effluent and sludge on various occasions during the period between December 1962 and 1964. Appellants further maintained that a lift station had been constructed by appellee in July of 1963, and that after such new lift station was put in operation, sewage back-flooded into and on their property. Therefore appellants are taking the position that they were damaged by sewage and effluent during the years 1962, 1963 and 1964.
Appellants appear to have originated their lawsuit largely on the theory of negligence, and then finally based it on the theory of nuisance. We will not discuss the matter of negligence other than as it affects the matter of our consideration of the allegation of nuisance.
Appellants present one point of error in which they allege that the trial court erred in granting appellee's motion for directed verdict because the appellants proved sufficient facts to support a recovery under the nuisance theory, and that same should have been submitted to the jury as a matter of law.
With regard to the facts, it appears from the record that during the summer months of 1964, one Marion Ryan, an employee of the Public Service Board, had made several trips to the sewage lift pump as a result of calls and complaints from the appellants. He states that on some occasions he found the pumps working and on other occasions they were not. He further testified that on one or more occasions when the pumps were not working, other operators of the Public Service Board had been down in the pumping station doing their ordinary daily check and maintenance; and lastly, that although on various occasions he had found the pumps and equipment in proper working order, that some two or more hours later, after another call from the Steeles, he went down and found that the pumps were turned off, with the result that there was no force to lift the sewage up to the next gravity level and which resulted in a back-flow of sewage into the Steele apartment building. This would indicate that some of the employees of the Public Service...
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