Wakefield v. Newell

• Decision Date: 23 February 1878
• Citation: 12 R.I. 75
• Parties: WARREN WAKEFIELD v. GEORGE W. NEWELL, Town Treasurer of the Town of Pawtucket.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

12 R.I. 75

WARREN WAKEFIELD v. GEORGE W. NEWELL, Town Treasurer of the Town of Pawtucket.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

February 23, 1878

No action lies against a municipal corporation for allowing the ordinary and natural flow of surface water to escape from a highway on to adjacent land. Nor will an action lie for the results of such usual changes of grade as must be presumed to have been contemplated and paid for at the lay-out of the highway.

A municipal corporation has the same powers over its highways in respect to surface water as an individual has over his land. Inman v. Tripp, 11 R.I. 520 explained and affirmed.

TRESPASS on the case. On demurrer to the declaration.

Beach & Osfield and Stephen A. Cooke, Jr., for plaintiff.

Pardon E. Tillinghast, for defendant.

DURFEE C. J.

This is an action of the case to recover damages from the town of Pawtucket, for suffering water to flow from a highway in the town upon adjoining land belonging to the plaintiff. The declaration sets forth:

" The plaintiff was and still is the owner in his own right of certain real estate, situate in said town, on and adjoining a certain street and public highway in said town called Pleasant Street, and which street said town was bound to keep in good and suitable repair, for travelling in and upon the same, and to keep certain gutters and sluiceways running in and along said highway, so and in such good repair that the water that usually and of right should run therein should not overflow and run out and upon the said land of the said plaintiff; but the said town, by themselves, their officers, agents, and employees so negligently and wrongfully kept the said street and public highway, and the sluiceways thereof in such bad repair, that the water which they ought and should have carried in and along said street overflowed on and over the land of the plaintiff, so that the said land was by said water overflowing thereon greatly damaged, and the crops growing thereon were greatly injured," & c.

The defendant demurs to the declaration upon the ground that it does not properly set forth any cause of action. The plaintiff relies in support of the action upon Inman v. Tripp, 11 R.I. 520. In that case the plaintiff owned an estate in the city of Providence, on Public Street, at the lowest point thereof, and the city so changed the grade of several streets as to allow surface water which formerly flowed in other streets, and surface water which was formerly ponded in another street at some distance from the plaintiff's estate, to run down Public Street, and thence on to his estate and into his cellar and well, and the court held that the plaintiff was entitled to an...