Betham v. Philadelphia

Citations

• 196 Pa. 302
• 46 A. 448
• 1900 Pa. LEXIS 518

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Statutory duty — Liability for negligence.</p> <p>No dutyhas been imposed by statute upon the city of Philadelphia to protect the low-lying lands along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers from overflow, or to drain the low-lying ground.</p> <p>When a legal duty has been imposed by statute upon a municipal corporation, it is undoubtedly liable for injuries resulting from the neglect of that duty; but the duty imposed must be absolute or imperative, not such as, under a grant of authority, is intrusted to the judgment and discretion of the municipal authority, since a municipal corporation is not liable to an action for damages either for the nonexercise of, or for the manner in which, in good faith, it exercises discretionary powers of a public or legislative character.</p> <p>If an act of a municipal corporation necessarily lies wholly outside of the general or special powers of the corporation as conferred by its charter or by statute, the corporation can in no event be liable in an action for damages whether it directly commanded the performance of the act, or whether it be done by its officers without its express command.</p> <p>Municipalities — Police power — Negligence.</p> <p>A municipality is not liable for the improper or negligent exercise of its police power.</p> <p>Municipalities — Powers—Negligence—Flooding lands — Police power.</p> <p>Where a municipality has no authority either by its charter or by statute to construct a dike or sluice on low lands within the city limits, and such authority has been expressly granted by statute to a meadow company, the city is not liable for a flooding of land caused by the negligent or improper construction of a sluice by it; and this is the case whether the alleged negligent act was done by the city merely as a volunteer, or was done in the exercise of its police power. In such a case article 16, section 8, of the constitution, providing for compensation for property injured by the exercise of the