Heath v. Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Co.

148 N.W. 311, 126 Minn. 470, 1914 Minn. LEXIS 676
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 18, 1914
DocketNos. 18,691—(217)
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 148 N.W. 311 (Heath v. Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Heath v. Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Co., 148 N.W. 311, 126 Minn. 470, 1914 Minn. LEXIS 676 (Mich. 1914).

Opinion

Holt, J.

.This is an action to enjoin defendants from casting sand upon plaintiff’s land, and for damages for the injury already inflicted because of a deposit of sand thereon. Plaintiff prevailed, and defendants appeal from the order denying their alternative motion for .a judgment or a new trial.

The defendants’ right of way, where it crosses St. Croix river, runs east and west and occupies a strip off of the northerly boundary ■of government lot 3 in section 1 of township 30, range 20 west. In the spring of 1911, after defendants had acquired the right of way and constructed a high embankment thereon for their road bed, plaintiff bought the remainder of the lot from the same person who had conveyed the right of way to defendants. Plaintiff’s land is [472]*472bounded on the east by St. Croix river, towards which it slopes. A ravine or depression exists in the northwest corner, which runs northeasterly until it strikes the right of way, about where an abandoned right of way crosses the present, thence it turns southeasterly and spreads out into a valley. In this valley are two spring-fed rivulets which unite and, passing.along, discharge into a bay of the river in the southeasterly part of the lot. The land is adapted for a summer residence because of its attractive location and also, on account of the springs, available for -keeping and propagating brook trout. Plaintiff bought it for these purposes, erected a dwelling house, and built concrete dams in the rivulets and springs wherein to keep the trout. Because of the nature of the ground defendants were compelled to make a cut some 4,000 feet in length immediately west of plaintiff’s land. This cut is, at places, over 150 feet in width and some 40 feet in depth, sloping east. Over lot 3 the defendants’ track is, for the greater part, laid upon immense fills; and the balance is upon trestle. The result was that a large quantity of water from the drainage basin caused by the cut flowed down upon plaintiff’s land and, in discharging through a culvert placed in the ravine where it crossed the abandoned right of way, it struck the toe of the large fill, carrying away great quantities of sand down into the springs and rivulets mentioned, almost entirely filling the trout dams and burying the trout. As the sand was thus torn loose from the fill, more was dumped in. Experts testified that from 2,000 to 2,200 cubic yards of sand were deposited upon plaintiff’s premises, and that the value of removing the same was $1.50 per cubic yard. One question was submitted to a jury for determination, namely: “In what amount has the property of the plaintiff described in the complaint been damaged by the deposit and casting thereon of sand and loose material from the embankment of the defendants ?” And the answer was: “In the sum of $3,500.” The court embodied the verdict in the findings, granted the injunction asked and awarded damages in the sum named.

The first proposition, which naturally presents itself, is whether the plaintiff was entitled to an injunction. It is contended by appellants that its embankment and fill was constructed when plain[473]*473tiff bought; that the right of action because of faulty construction had accrued and vested in plaintiff’s grantor and did not pass with the deed; that the embankment or fill was a permanent injury and the deposit of sand afterwards was a mere natural result of surface water washing against and flowing over the fill; and that this would take place was perfectly obvious when plaintiff bought, and naturally the purchase price was reduced accordingly. In short, it is claimed that the construction of the road bed was a permanent injury to this lot 3 for which damages accrued to the then owner, plaintiff’s grantor. We are cited to cases like Karst v. St. Paul, Stillwater & Taylor’s Falls R. Co. 22 Minn. 118; Ziebarth v. Nye, 42 Minn. 541, 44 N. W. 1027; Evans v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co. 117 Minn. 4, 134 N. W. 294; Milwaukee & N. Ry. Co. v. Strange, 63 Wis. 178, 23 N. W. 432; Toledo, W. & W. Ry. Co. v. Morgan, 72 Ill. 155; Arterburn v. Beard, 86 Neb. 733, 126 N. W. 379; Kindred v. Union Pac. R. Co. 225 U. S. 582, 32 Sup. Ct. 780, 56 L. ed. 1216; Louisville & N. Ry. Co. v. Lambert, 33 Ky. Law Kep. 199, and others. In some of these cases the injury grew out of the erection of a permanent structure upon land other than complainant’s but which depreciated the value or use of his; and in others, improvements of a permanent character had been erected by the defendant on his own property which diverted surface waters, or a watercourse, before the complainant acquired the property claimed to be injuriously affected; and again in others, where land was conveyed with a railway upon it, so that it was held that the grantee took subject to an easement. Of course if damages have been recovered for present and prospective injuries to land, no injunction will issue to abate that which is included in the recovery, and it also follows that, if the construction of the railroad embankment was a permanent injury to lot 3 when owned by plaintiff’s grantor, he is the one entitled to damages, and plaintiff can have neither injunction nor damages. But we think defendants’ position is not sound. They owned the right of way and had a perfect right to make cuts and fills so long as these were confined to their own premises, and could heap up any quantities of sand or other material thereon, provided no part thereof was cast upon plaintiff’s land. Gen[474]*474erally speaking, surface water is a common enemy which every proprietor may protect himself against, and, unless collected on one’s own premises and discharged in destructive quantities upon a neighbor’s, there is no liability. But not so with rocks, sand or improvements placed on land. These must be so placed as' not to fall upon the adjacent land of another. If sand is so piled on one’s own land that every rain continues to wash part of it down upon the premises of a neighbor, it constitutes a nuisance, it obstructs the free use of his property so as to interfere with his comfortable enjoyment thereof, and he is entitled to an injunction and damages. Section 8085, G. S. 1913. No sand escaped from defendants’ works until after plaintiff purchased. However, some time thereafter, when heavy rains set in, it clearly appeared that, with the cut, old roadway and culvert in the condition constructed and maintained by defendants, every subsequent heavy rain would cause a new deposit of sand upon plaintiff’s land and a corresponding erosion of the embankment, which would have to be again replenished by defendants. The trespass was a continuing one within the case of Bowers v. Mississippi & R. R. Boom Co. 78 Minn. 398, 81 N. W. 208, 79 Am. St. 395, wherein Chief Justice Start states: “The test, whether an injury to real estate by the wrongful act of another is permanent in the sense of permitting a recovery of prospective damages therefor, is not necessarily the character, as to permanency, of the structure or obstruction causing the injury, but the test is whether the whole injury results from the original wrongful act, or from the wrongful continuance of the state of facts produced by such act.” 2 Dunnell, Minn. Dig. § 4476. The evidence suggests that future injury is preventable. That the embankment was constructed in the usual way does not signify. The gist of the complaint against defendants is that they so arranged their materials upon the right of way that they continuously escape and fall upon plaintiff’s land.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
148 N.W. 311, 126 Minn. 470, 1914 Minn. LEXIS 676, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/heath-v-minneapolis-st-paul-sault-ste-marie-railway-co-minn-1914.