City of Jacksonville v. Lambert

Citations

• 62 Ill. 519

Syllabus

<p>1. Municipal, corporation—liability for tort—nuisance. Even though the authorities of a city may be under a legal duty to afford sufficient drainage for the health and comfort of the inhabitants, and, in the discharge of such duty, construct a sewer or drain after the most approved plan, using the best material, and the work is done in the most skillful manner, yet they have no right thereby to concentrate the dirty water, offal, and filth of the city or any portion thereof, and discharge the same upon the premises of an individual; and if, in so doing, a private injury is sustained, the city will be liable for the damages. It must so construct such improvement as to avoid injury to individual property.</p> <p>2. Same—discharging filth on private property. Where a city constructed a sewer so that the garbage, suds and slops, offal and filth from the dwelling-houses and woolen mills by which it run was conducted, discharged, and flowed upon and through the real estate of the plaintiff, situate in the city and near the terminus of the sewer, corrupting and polluting the atmosphere so as to render the land unsaleable and unsuitable for residences, and otherwise injure the use of the land or a portion thereof: Held, that the city was liable to the plaintiff in ease for the damages sustained.</p> <p>3. Same—condemnation. If, in abating or removing a public nuisance by a system of sewerage or drainage, it unavoidably inflicts an injury to private property, the corporate authorities should, by condemnation or otherwise, make compensation for the injury.</p> <p>4. Damages—exemplary. Where a city, in constructing a sewer in good faith, of good material, and in a skillful manner, has caused an injury to private property by the flow of offal and filth from the terminus of the sewer upon and through such property, punitive damages are not authorized.</p> <p>5. Excessive damages—tort. In this case the city had constructed a sewer terminating near a tract of about fifty acres