Farnandis v. Great Northern Railway Co.

Citations

• 41 Wash. 486
• 84 P. 18
• 1906 Wash. LEXIS 996

Syllabus

<p>Adjoining Landowners — Lateral Support — Blasting—Injury to Buildings — Tunneling Adjacent Land — Recovery Irrespective op Negligence. In an action for damages to buildings by the sinking and subsidence of tbe earth, caused by the construction of a railway tunnel in a city under lands adjacent to the plaintiff’s buildings, recovery may be had without proof of negligence on the part of the railroad company in constructing the tunnel, when the damage was caused by the removal of the lateral support or the shaking of the earth by blasts and not by any increased downward or lateral pressure upon the soil by the buildings, in view of the constitutional provision that private property shall not be damaged without just compensation having been first made.</p> <p>Same — Evidence—Question por Jury. In an action for damages to buildings, the question whether the injury was caused by blasts and the removal of lateral support by the construction of a tunnel one hundred and twenty feet distant, is for the jury when the sinking and cracking of the earth was evidently not due to any increased or downward pressure upon the soil by the buildings.</p> <p>Same — Measure op Damages' — Landlord and Tenant — Responsibility to Tenant por Repairs. In an action by the lessees of buildings used for hotel and lodging purposes for damages by the removal of lateral support making the buildings unfit for occupancy, it is proper to instruct the jury to consider in determining the damages the uses to which the buildings were put.</p> <p>Same — Removal op Lateral Support — Tapping Subterranean Waters — Damages From Operations in Public Streets. In an action for damages to premises by the removal of lateral support, it is no defense that the subsidence of the land was due to an excavation under a public street which tapped subterranean waters the withdrawal of which caused the subsidence of the land, the same rule applying as in the case of the damaging of property by the removal of earth in a pu