Genova v. City of Kansas City

497 S.W.2d 555, 1973 Mo. App. LEXIS 1203
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 4, 1973
DocketNo. 25947
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 497 S.W.2d 555 (Genova v. City of Kansas City) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Genova v. City of Kansas City, 497 S.W.2d 555, 1973 Mo. App. LEXIS 1203 (Mo. Ct. App. 1973).

Opinion

PRITCHARD, Judge.

Upon the theory of nuisance, plaintiff recovered a judgment pursuant to the verdict of a jury against defendant in the amount of $3,640.00 for water damage to plaintiff’s building at 2826, 2828 and 2830 McGee Trafficway, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Plaintiff has filed a motion to dismiss defendant’s appeal upon the ground that its statement of facts is not fair and concise as required by Rule 84.04(c), V.A. M.R.: “The statement of facts shall be a fair and concise statement of the facts relevant to the questions presented for determination without argument. Such statement of facts may be followed by a resumé of the testimony of each witness relevant to the points presented.” Defendant has amended its statement of facts to conform to the rule. Plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the appeal is therefore overruled.

Defendant City is the owner of land occupied by Union Cemetery, 227 East 28th Street, as a result of an ordinance passed on March IS, 1937, accepting a deed to it. Since that time the City has maintained the cemetery as a park, including an open drain beginning at the south wall, then running along its east wall. Minor repairs, consisting of filling in concrete between the tile joints of the drain, and filling in between the tile drain and the cemetery wall, were done, according to the City.

Plaintiff, a resident of Kansas City for 65 years, bought land at 2826, 2828 and [557]*5572830 McGee Trafficway (just east of the cemetery) in 1943. He tore down all the buildings and built the three new ones, with sidewalks, in late 1956 and in 1957. One roof takes care of all three buildings. To the west of plaintiff’s buildings, and behind a north-south concrete and rock retaining wall, the cemetery grounds slope downward to the east and north. The very shallow, open drain tile (constructed of split tiles joined with a “bell”) begins at the corner of 29th and Oak and runs north to the northwest corner of plaintiff’s building.

In the summer of 1969, plaintiff received a call from his tenant at 2830 McGee as to water problems. When he arrived there plaintiff saw water coming from the west onto the side wall, then off to the street. In various places the water inside the building was popping up 2, 3 or 8 inches high. “As I went behind the partition of the west wall I saw water coming out of the mortar joints, out of the concrete blocks. How many, I don’t know. It looked like a rubber hose coming out.” Plaintiff observed the condition of the tile drain in the cemetery after he was flooded. Some were flat, some were higher than others, and the mortar joints were gone. In some places under the tile a shovel would go in from four inches to as far as it would go because the dirt was washed out underneath in spots for as much as 20 or 30 feet or more.

After the flood, wood timbers were placed by plaintiff temporarily on the cemetery wall, then one tier of concrete blocks was added, with two more tiers later added, to hold back the water from the cemetery. Plaintiff filled in the holes underneath the tiles with rock and “buckshot”, “choked it out with mortar, cement, rock and sand” on the west side of the drain tile, which was full of leaves and beer cartons.

Inside the building there was a drain at 2826 McGee Trafficway but it was too small to take out the water. Another drain was in the boiler room of 2830 McGee Trafficway which was partially plugged with dirt and mud in the summer of 1969.

On the day of the flooding, plaintiff’s son, Jack Genova, Jr., was at the scene. The roof of the buildings were inspected, and there was no leak except a minor one from a water tower base, which leak was repaired. He described the cemetery drain slope: “It kind of slopes up north then like it almost levels all the way up here, so there is no chance of water running — the water getting there.” He observed the water sitting there after it rained. The water came off the hill so fast that it would jump or land on the tile and run over like a falls. It was like an ocean of water which would come down the wall directly behind plaintiff’s building. Other water was coming from the south, and it would all meet in the same place. Inside the building at 2826 McGee Trafficway, “the water would literally shoot out in a stream out of the wall in pressure — would push out and where ever the water had such tremendous force, cracked out parts of the concrete would literally shoot out of the wall.”

Added to the testimony of plaintiff and his son is that of plaintiff’s maintenance employee, Hershel Ford. He corroborated their testimony as to the condition of the tile drain when he saw it the day of the flood. He found the tile with water backed over it alongside the fence, and he found holes under the tiles, “I called it a ditch up under there.” Water came off the cemetery hill, ran out into the (tile), and water went over it and over it along its length. The tile drain sloped south to north until it got to plaintiff’s building, where it ran out flat, “where the water stands clear across there.” More water went under the cemetery wall than over it. Jack Genova, Jr. had testified that every so often the tile, where the water had come up from the trench in front of it, had uplifted almost all the way across between 2830, 2828 and 2826 McGee Trafficway. It was like the concrete and mortar be[558]*558tween the tile joints were gone. On the side closest to plaintiff’s building, the concrete had cracked along its length, and there was a trench under the tile varying from an inch to forty-five inches in depth all along the back of the building.

The City’s first point is that plaintiff’s damage Instruction No. 5, authorizing the jury to award any damages “which you believe he sustained as a direct result of the occurrence mentioned in the evidence” is in error. The reasons assigned are that the evidence established multiple occurrences of water damage, and the instruction failed to eliminate damages sustained to plaintiff’s property due to a leaky roof and a stopped-up interior floor drain; or due solely to Acts vis Major. Plaintiff and his witnesses conceded that there were two leaks in the roof of the building which were immediately repaired. There is no evidence that these leaks caused the damage to the building. If there had been evidence of other causes for which the City would not be liable, then it could have offered a withdrawal or clarifying instruction under MAI 34.00 and 34.02, and Committee’s Comment, p. 376, which it did not do. As to the Act of Vis Major, and considering what the City’s witness, Allen D. Pearson, U.S. Meteorologist, testified to as to the summer months of June, July and August, 1969, being the wettest months in Kansas City’s history (there was then no flash flood), yet under Geiger v. City of St. Joseph, 198 S.W. 78 (Mo.App.1917), that testimony would not require an instruction on “other occurrences.” In Geiger, as here, the rains were not so heavy as to come within the definition of the term “act of God,” as to be a sole cause of the damage. The court noted that the effect of the heavy rains was only to increase the amount of water flowing over plaintiff’s lot by reason of a choked sewer, again, much the same as here. In Somerset Villa, Inc. v. City of Lee’s Summit, 436 S.W.2d 658 (Mo.1968), the plaintiff’s action was against two defendants, one for nuisance, the other for negligence, and there was no evidence of two or more causes of the one damage. In Jurgeson v. Romine, 442 S. W.2d 176

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Bluebook (online)
497 S.W.2d 555, 1973 Mo. App. LEXIS 1203, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/genova-v-city-of-kansas-city-moctapp-1973.