Lakewood (Vil.) v. Swift

Citations

• 22 Ohio C.C. Dec. 470

Syllabus

<p>MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS — SEWERS.</p> <p>1. Municipal Liability foe Defective Sewers not Relieved from by Fact of Being Constructed by Tax Funds.</p> <p>A municipality is not relieved from liability for damages caused by the flooding of a cellar, resulting from the backing up of sewage in a private drain connected with a defective public sewer, by the fact that such main sewer was constructed at the expense of the corporation and paid for by funds raised by taxation, and not by assessment upon the property benefited.</p> <p>2. Evidence of Flooding-of Sanitary and Other Sewers Above Same Outlet Competent to Prove Obstruction in Main Outlet Sewer.</p> <p>In an action for damages resulting from the flooding of a sanitary sewer, evidence that property drained by a storm sewer emptying into the same manhole as the sanitary sewer and that other property having drains leading to the sanitary sewer were flooded at the same time is competent as tending to show <an obstruction in the main sanitary sewer below the manhole; but evidence of obstructions in the sewer above plaintiff’s property and of sediment in the main sanitary sewer more than nine months after the flooding complained of is incompetent.</p> <p>3. “Unprecedented Rainfall” Qualified by Instruction as to Overflow of Sewers not Prejudicial.</p> <p>“Unprecedented” as applied to rainfall overtaxing sewers in fixing the measure of liability of municipal liability for overflowing sewers to the damage of property drained, if unexplained or qualified, would be misleading; but as used in an instruction, “If the sewer * * * was of sufficient capacity to take care of the ordinary flow of water and sewage, including that brought in by the new streets; and the backing up was caused by an unprecedented rainfall, something which could not have been reasonably anticipated” considering conditions in that locality, it is not prejudicial.</p>