Brinkerhoff v. Salt Lake City

371 P.2d 211, 13 Utah 2d 214, 1962 Utah LEXIS 182

• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Decided: May 4, 1962
• Docket: 9456
• Status: Published

Opinions

HENRIOD, Justice.

Appeal from a judgment after verdict in favor of plaintiffs, incident to the loss of their two-year-old child by drowning in a canal used by the City. Reversed, with .no costs awarded.

A count based on attractive nuisance was rejected by the trial court, and rightly so.¹ The remaining count alleged that the City “negligently designed, laid out, constructed and maintained the bridge, street and sidewalks along Charlton Avenue without providing an adequate fence or other barricade along said canal or between the canal and the sidewalk where the sidewalk passes over the canal,” in which plaintiffs’ child, residing several houses east thereof, was drowned. The allegation was proper under Title 10-7-77, Utah Code Annotated 1953, having to do with defective streets, alleys, sidewalks, bridges and the like. Under that title, so far as negligent maintenance of such facilities by a city is concerned, immunity is waived, if certain statutory procedures are closely followed with respect to notice of and filing of claims, otherwise, such defense would be assertable.

There was no pleading or proof that the City used the canal in any but a governmental capacity. This differentiates the instant case from Brown v. Salt Lake City,² relied upon in plaintiffs’ memo to the trial court.

Conceding that we review in a light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence conclusively indicated that the street, sidewalks, and bridge were neither defective nor negligently designed, laid out, constructed and maintained, which evidence we cannot ignore, and there appears to be nothing to indicate that any such defect had any causal connection with the resulting death. The only complaint left was that the street, sidewalks and bridge should have been supplemented with a fence or barricade other than the bridge abutments which were shown to have been of standard construction. Nonetheless, the court, over objection and a claim of immunity, permitted an enlargement of the issue to in-elude the question whether the city was negligent in failing to fence the canal itself.

Plaintiffs’ points 2 and 3 on appeal urge that the City was negligent a) because it “maintained an open canal in a residential area” and that b) “a property owner is liable for injuries to trespassing children if he has knowledge that children trespass, thereon, yet maintains an artificial condition which involves unreasonable risk of death or injury to them, and which they are not likely to discover, where the utility of such condition is slight as compared to the risk to children.” ³

It was undisputed that the City patrolled the stream regularly and warned children to. stay away. Natural growth and a pathway along the canal were shown to exist. It was as it is, before the advent of housing nearby. An expert said “unless I miss my guess * * * part of the canal * * *■ was put in by Brigham Young in helping to transport granite blocks from out of the canyons into Temple Square, where they were building the temple.” The stream was diverted from a natural waterway years ago, and except for such rerouting, has been and still is in all respects a natural waterway with banks and characteristic .shrubbery along its course. The people ■came to it, and the physical attributes thereof, in logic or reason, cannot charge it with any greater tortious proclivity in its ancient flow of upwards of 100 years, than could be charged to the Weber, Sevier, City 'Creek, Cottonwood, Millcreelc or a thousand other streams in the state.

It is admitted that the child could have had access to the canal at various points along the canal on both sides of the bridge, and there was some testimony that indicated that a small dog companion was seen to be barking at a point where the bridge spanned the current. This circumstance would seem to be non-probative of the claim of defect in the street or bridge or indicative of any •duty to fence a stream.

We have difficulty in seeing where the City was negligent at all, since it has no statutory or other duty generally to fence such a stream. But assuming a case where there might be such an issue, we believe that where there are no defects in the street or bridge allowing suit against a city by special legislative interdiction permitting it, the expansion of the issues to include one for negligence in failing to fence, transports the case from the realm of statutory permission to sue, into the area where a governmental agency may assert the defense of immunity, and also to assert non-negligence in failing to fence a stream of long standing.

Heretofore, we have held that there was such immunity in the case of flood waters,⁴ injuries resulting from burns incident to a schoolyard incinerator,⁵ operation of a recreation area,⁶ collapse of a grandstand at a July 4th pageant,⁷ operation of a sleigh-riding area,⁸ a golf course,⁹ an airport waiting room,¹⁰ and a sewer.¹¹

Since the trial court rejected the attractive nuisance theory urged by plaintiffs, it becomes difficult to conclude that failing to fence the stream would generate liability simply because natural growth of brush and trees along the channel’s banks made it less, not more attractive to children. Nowhere was there any assertion of liability for failure to remove such growth, but the jury was relegated to the determination of negligence on a failure to fence.

The impact of this case becomes obvious. Simply it is this: that to conclude that a city is liable for such failure, the jury might determine that every hamlet, village, town, city, county or private property owner would have the onus of responding in damages if, when others construct a home or homes nearby, the flow of a natural river, stream, open canal or ditch, were not fenced. The implication would be that thousands of miles of rivers, streams, irrigation canals and ditches, including such rivers as the Sevier, Virgin, Cottonwood, City Creek, Millcreek, American Fork, the Provo, Jordan, Duchesne, Green, the Surplus' Canal, and hundreds of others would require fencing if people chose to build near the stream. This court negatived any such concept in the Charvoz case, involving the death of a child in a city ditch carrying water 10 to 12 inches in depth.

In Niblock v. Salt Lake City,¹² we pointed out that “the duty to repair or construct streets * * * is a governmental one and that in the absence of a statute no liability devolves on a municipality for the defective condition of its streets.” There is nothing in the instant case showing that the city operated the stream in a proprietary capacity, rather than governmental¹³ or could not assert the defense of immunity.

Inescapably, therefore, it follows that under existing pronouncements of this^ court, the operation of an open, ancient canal, cannot impose liability on a city upon the advent of building near it, without legislative sanction. Inescapably it follows that the plaintiffs, failing to tie down the gravamen of their complaint of defective street, have no recourse to an issue created during trial, basis for which has no legislative or judicial support.

(Emphasis ours.)

CALLISTER and CROCKETT, JJ., concur.

1 . Charvoz v. Salt Lake City, 42 Utah 455, 131 P. 901, 45 L.R.A.,N.S., 652 (1913). Also, in Sehy v. Salt Lake City, 41 Utah 535, 126 P. 691, 42 L.R.A.,N.S., 915 (1912), we indicated that there was no duty to keep the stream in a safe condition and free from obstruction.

2 . 33 Utah 222, 93 P. 570, 14 L.R.A.,N.S., 619.

3 . Subdivision (a) above obviously was a paraphrase of Sec. 339, Torts Restatement. Equally as obvious, that section is not apropos, since it takes no account of the defense of immunity, does not apply to open streams, and has to do with a private property owner’s active and affirmative creation of a “structure or other artificial condition.” The illustrations posed there are such as leaving dynamite caps on mining property where it is known children are wont to play; permitting high tension wires to become uninsulated and to sag onto magnolia trees near an open highway where children were known to play; and in permitting a turntable close to an open highway where a simple lock would have eliminated any danger (the note pointing out, however, that companies generally are not responsible under the turntable cases.) Nowhere are found cases remotely similar to a waterway like that here, nor is reference made to immunity. It is concerned with artificial situations, mostly mechanical, created by private property owners, knowing of inherent dangers,— not with open waterways coursing through many miles in a natural or what appears to be a natural waterway to anyone who might observe.

4 . “Wilkinson v. State, 42 Utah 483, 134 P. 626 (1913).

5 . Bingham v. Bd. of Ed., 118 Utah 582, 223 P.2d 432 (1950).

6 . Ramirez v. Ogden City, 3 Utah 2d 102, 279 P.2d 463, 47 A.L.R.2d 539 (1955).

7 . Alder v. Salt Lake City, 64 Utah 568, 231 P. 1102 (1924), where there is language particularly significant to the case here, where it was said that with respect to the question of immunity, “the exception in the case of streets is founded on public policy and expediency, and is recognized in this state by legislative act. * * * If the exception is to be extended to parks and playgrounds, the legislature and not the courts should determine the question.”

8 . Davis v. Provo City, 1 Utah 2d 244, 265 P.2d 415 (1953).

9 . Jopes v. Salt Lake County, 9 Utah 2d 297, 343 P.2d 728 (1959).

10 . Wade v. Salt Lake City, 10 Utah 2d 374, 353 P.2d 914 (1960).

11 . Cobia v. Roy City, 12 Utah 2d 375, 366 P.2d 986 (1961).

12 . 100 Utah 573, 111 P.2d 800 (1941).

13 . Griffin v. Salt Lake City, 111 Utah 94, 176 P.2d 156 (1947).