Swineford v. Franklin Cnty.
| Citation | 6 Mo.App. 39 |
| Parties | ABSALOM SWINEFORD ET AL., Respondents, v. FRANKLIN COUNTY, Appellant. |
| Decision Date | 14 May 1878 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Missouri (US) |
There can be no recovery in damages against a county where the act complained of is either a wrongful or negligent way of repairing a county road, or an unauthorized trespass upon private property. If the former, the county is not liable, because the County Court was performing functions imposed upon it by the general road-laws of the State, and was acting for the State. If the latter, the individuals only are liable, and not the county.
APPEAL from St. Louis Circuit Court.
Reversed and dismissed.
BOOTH, KISKADDON & JEFFRIES, for appellant, cited Reardon v. St. Louis, 36 Mo. 555; Ray County v. Bentley, 49 Mo. 236; Jefferson County v. Cowan, 54 Mo. 234; Saline County v. Wilson, 61 Mo. 237; Murtaugh v. St. Louis, 44 Mo. 479.
CREWS & BRAGG, for respondents, cited McGarry v. Lafayette, 4 La. An. 440; Wilde v. New Orleans, 12 La. An. 15; Thayer v. Boston, 19 Pick. 511; Lee v. Sandy, 40 N. Y. 442; Hannon v. St. Louis, 62 Mo. 313, and cases there cited.
This is an action brought by the owner of a mill and mill-site in Franklin County to recover damages for the filling up of a mill-race of the respondents. The petition alleges that the respondents were carrying on a profitable milling business, and that the appellant, by its agents, destroyed the race which conveyed to their mill the necessary stream of water, and this deprived the respondents of the use and value of their mill, etc. The answer is a general denial. The evidence tended to show that the respondents, about the year 1867, purchased land on the Maramec River, in Franklin County, and at a place known as “Horse-Shoe Bend” deepened a slough of the river and made a race of it, and there erected a saw-mill and grist-mill, at considerable expense. A county road ran along the bottom, nearly parallel with the river, and crossed the slough by a bridge which was supported on trestles. The respondents, having procured an act of the Legislature authorizing the erection of a dam across the river, built a dam near the head of the slough, and erected their mill near the foot of it. In the spring of 1868, when the mill was in successful operation, a freshet washed away a part of the dam and prevented the mill from working; and at the instance of certain persons owning land in the vicinity the respondents were enjoined from making repairs and putting the mill in running order. While things were in this condition the County Court of Franklin County, apparently apprehensive that in consequence of the deepening of the slough the water would leave the main channel of the river to such an extent as to rise in the slough and injure the trestle-work of the road which crossed the slough, made various orders, from time to time, to their road-officers in regard to the dam of the respondents, with a view of ascertaining its effect and taking precautions to preserve the road. A flatboat used by the respondents had drifted down against the trestle-work, and the testimony tended to show that the action of the water at this point was injuring the road where it crossed the slough. The road commissioner reported to the County Court, recommending that the slough be filled up; and in January, 1869, the County Court ordered that one Lucy superintend the repairing of the road and fill up the gap bridged by the trestle-work where the latter crossed the mill-race. In spite of the remonstrance of the respondents, who protested that the County Court had no power to do it, the mill-race was filled up, and Lucy was by order of the County Court paid for his services. A demurrer to evidence was overruled, and a verdict given for the respondents.
It is not easy to ascertain the precise legal ground upon which the respondents base their claim to recover. In the petition there is no averment of fact connecting the county of Franklin with the injury complained of; nothing to explain what is obviously mere inference,--the alleged doing of the injury by the county....
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