Figueroa Velázquez v. Aqueduct & Sewer Authority

99 P.R. 102
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedMay 26, 1970
DocketNo. R-66-338
StatusPublished

This text of 99 P.R. 102 (Figueroa Velázquez v. Aqueduct & Sewer Authority) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Figueroa Velázquez v. Aqueduct & Sewer Authority, 99 P.R. 102 (prsupreme 1970).

Opinion

per CURIAM:

In a petition for injunction filed by the conjugal partnership constituted by the spouses Celso Figueroa Velázquez and Carmen Pagán Figueroa, against the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority,1 the Ponce Part of the Superior Court rendered judgment (1) granting the petition for injunction and ordering defendant to remove the sewer pump situated next to plaintiffs’ house, placing said pump in a place where it would not be in conflict with the welfare, comfort, and enjoyment of property to which every person is entitled, and (2) sustaining the complaint for damages and ordering defendant to pay to plaintiffs the sum of $200 for moral sufferings.

The foregoing judgment is grounded on the following:

“Findings of Fact:
“1. Plaintiffs are owners, in fee simple, of a property in Villa Flores Housing Development, Ponce, Puerto Rico, where they live with their six children.
“2. Next to plaintiffs’ house, on the west boundary, there is the lot where a shack, which has in its interior a pump of the sewer system that receives all the sewer waters of the Villa Flores Housing Development, is erected.
“3. These findings of fact perceived by the trial court during the ocular inspections, as they appeared recited in detail in the minutes of the same, dated September 13, 1966, and in the statement of facts which appears at the beginning of this opinion, [104]*104which will be considered as the findings of the court, are adopted and made part of the same..
“4. This court has no doubt as to the fact that this sewer pump is a public convenience necessary in Villa Flores Housing Development, and that its management and control is being determined with good faith on the part of those who are in charge of the same. However, this court concludes that said pump is not situated in an adequate place and that the pestilence which emanates from the same transcends the limit of what is reasonable, and that as a result therefrom it is destroying or prejudicing plaintiffs’ right to the comfortable use and enjoyment of life and their property, prejudicing plaintiffs’ and their minor children’s health, affecting the value of their property and causing plaintiffs moral sufferings for that reason.” (Pp. 132, 133.)

Making reference to the two ocular inspections made and after describing plaintiffs’ house, as well as the pump shack, the trial court stated:

“The undersigned judge entered, with all the aforementioned persons, defendant’s lot and inside the shack built therein. The same has only one story with a basement to which you go down by an iron stair contiguous to the wall.
“In the shack’s only story the court observed that there were installed two rotary air compressors whose function is to compress the air which is stored in a tank which is outside of the shack .on the north side of the same. The compression system works on compressed air.
“In said premises of the shack there are two receptacles or pots. The sewer water which comes from outside, from all the housing development, enters through a sealed pipe into the two pots or receptacles mentioned, which are hermetically sealed because they work on compressed air; said pots or receptacles have two electrodes from the upper part downwards. One of said electrodes is 6 inches long and the other is about 10 or 12 inches long.
“On the shack’s lot and facing the same there is a tank called ‘sewer manhole’ with a diameter of about five (5) feet, where all the sewer waters from the housing development are received and from there they go to said receptacles or pots by [105]*105gravity, through a direct pipe which connects the ‘manhole’ with the ‘pots.’ Said ‘manhole’ is made of reinforced cement with an approximate depth of 25 feet and has a cast iron cover of 22 inches diameter. On that cover there is a hole which allows the escape of gases which are created inside the ‘manhole.’ To this hole, which is very important for the decision of this case, we shall refer further on.
“All the sewage from the entire housing development is carried into this ‘manhole’ from another ‘manhole’ which is installed on the sidewalk facing State Highway No. 1, more or less like the one which we have described and which is inside the shack’s lot.
“Along said sidewalk, from west to east, the judge walked with all the persons present, passing in front of about eight residential houses of said housing development, occupied by other .persons, and at intervals he could observe other cement ‘manholes’ identical with the one which we have aforedescribed.
“The sewage flows through a pipe along these ‘manholes’ from east to west, until it reaches the one on the sidewalk facing the shack’s lot, from here it all goes to the interior ‘manhole’ in the yard where the shack is located and in front thereof where all the sewage from the housing development is accumulated, and from here, as we have explained before, by gravity and through a pipe it goes directly to the ‘pots’ located in the lot.
“The1 mechanism of the entire installation is the following: The said sewage level rises to within one of the ‘pots’ and when it touches the shortest electrode it activates one of the valves and allows the compressed air which is stored inside the pot which is located outside of the north part of the shack to enter. This compressed air displaces the sewage contained in the ‘pot,’ lowering the level thereof within the ‘pot’ and displacing it through a cast iron pipe which carries it to the sewer system of the town and from there to the Caribbean Sea.
“Returning to the hole that exists under the aforementioned ‘manholes,’ which, as we have said, allows the gases which are created inside the manhole to go outside in the open air, the court could perceive that through the hole in the cover of the ‘manhole’ which is inside the shack, I mean, inside the lot of the shack where all the sewage of the housing dev'elopment is accumulated, there is a strong smell of excrement, which as soon as [106]*106the judge had alighted from the automobile which drove him to the place, disagreeably hurt his sense of smell. The judge stopped at the house carport and there said foul odor was strongly noticed.
“It is true that Mr. Blanco, one of the attorneys for defendant, to questions of this judge, stated that he did not notice any disagreeable odor when the ‘manhole’ which exists in front of the lot where defendant’s shack is erected was being examined, and at the carport, but this judge did notice it, as a question of fact, and not because his sense of smell was more pronounced than that of Mr. Blanco.
“It is also true that Mr. Blanco answered that same question likewise, when we were walking in front of the fourth and eighth house after defendant’s shack, and the court wants to state that at that distance and in front of the fourth house, the foul odor was noticed, although not so strongly, but in front of the eighth house it was not noticed.

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Bluebook (online)
99 P.R. 102, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/figueroa-velazquez-v-aqueduct-sewer-authority-prsupreme-1970.