Kraver v. Smith

177 S.W. 286, 164 Ky. 674, 1915 Ky. LEXIS 466
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedMay 14, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 177 S.W. 286 (Kraver v. Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kraver v. Smith, 177 S.W. 286, 164 Ky. 674, 1915 Ky. LEXIS 466 (Ky. Ct. App. 1915).

Opinion

Opinion op the Court by

Judge Hurt

Reversing in

part and affirming in part.

These are nine of the twenty suits in the Henderson Circuit Court, wherein the plaintiffs sought a recovery against the defendants for various sums in damages, on account of injuries suffered by them, as alleged, by reason of the defendants, who were Henry Kraver, the Kentucky Peerless Distillery Company, and the City of Henderson, creating a nuisance in and along the banks of Canoe Creek, by the discharge from their respective sewers of filth, human excrement and slop from the distillery into the creek, and which they alleged, so poisoned and polluted the water, and poisoned the atmosphere, about their respective places of residence, with nauseating odors, that it rendered the water of the stream unfit for stock water, and diminished the value of their homes and the use of same, and rendered their occupancy of their homes very uncomfortable.

The nineteen suits were consolidated, and heard together by agreement of parties in the court below at the same time by one jury, and the trial resulted, so far as the appellees in the above styled cases were concerned, in a verdict by the jury and a judgment of the court in favor of Geo. F. Smith against the appellants, Henry Kraver and the City of Henderson, in the sum of $380.25, each; in favor of W. W. Mitchell against the appellants, in the sum of $285.18, each; in favor of Z. H. Littlepage, against appellants, in the sum of $251.55, each; in favor of M. F. Smullen, against appellants, in the sum of $380.25, each; in favor of E. B. Wright, against appellants, in the sum of $200.68, each; in favor of L. F. Coffey, et al., against appellants, in the sum of $306.31, each; in favor of Harry Gudgell, against appellants, in the [676]*676sum of $251,55, each; in favor of Oscar Martin, against appellants, in the sum of $507.00, each; in favor of Ed. L. Smith, against appellants, in the sum of $380.25, each.

The appellants, Henry Kraver and the City of Henderson, each filed grounds and made motions to set aside the verdict and to grant them a new trial, which were overruled by the court, and exceptions taken. The appellant, Kraver, also, before filing the grounds for a new trial and entering his motion for same, moved the court to enter a judgment for him non obstante veridicto, which was overruled and to which he excepted. Each of the appellants prayed an appeal from the judgments rendered against them in favor of Martin, and in the other cases above stated,.filed the transcrips, and entered a motion for an appeal from the judgments against them, which motion was passed to the merits.

The appellant, Henry Kraver, set out as his grounds for a new trial: First, because the damages allowed the appellants were excessive and appeared to have been under the influence of passion and prejudice; second, because the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence; third, because the verdict is contrary to the instructions given by the court; fourth, because the court erred in giving instructions Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, to the giving of which he objected and excepted at the time; fifth, because the court erred in refusing to give instruction “A,” offered by the appellant; sixth, because the court erred in refusing to give a peremptory instruction to the jury in favor of this appellant at the close of all the evidence; seventh, because the court erred in admitting incompetent and irrelevant evidence against him, to which he objected and excepted at the time; eighth, because the court erred in refusing to admit competent and relevant evidence offered by him; ninth, because the court erred in overruling his motion for a judgment in his favor, notwithstanding the verdict; tenth, because the court erred in not rendering judgments in conformity with the verdicts.

The City of Henderson alleged as its grounds for a new trial that the damages were excessive; that the court erred in giving instructions 1, 2, 3 and 4; that the verdicts were not sustained by sufficient evidence; and in admitting incompetent and irrelevant evidence upon the trial; and in refusing competent and relevant evidence offered by it upon the trial.

[677]*677A part of the appellees were the owners of the lands npon which they lived, and the others were tenants occupying lands under leases. The allegations of those owning lands were that Canoe Creek was a natural strean of water, either running through their lands or bordering thereon, and the same allegations were made by such as were tenants in regard to the premises occupied by them. Bach appellee, also, alleged in his petition that the city of Henderson had constructed a sewerage system, with sewers ending at Canoe Creek, from which was discharged the contents of the closets, baths and all of the filth and offal of the city into Canoe Creek, and that the contents of the sewers were carried out into Canoe Creek by the waters from the waterworks, which were owned and operated by the city; that the appellant, Henry Kraver, was the president of the Kentucky Peerless Distillery Company, and operated the distillery under a fifty-year lease from the company, and that he had, also, negligently constructed a sewer, by which he discharged all of the slop from the distillery into Canoe Creek, and that this was accomplished by the assistance of the water system of the city of Henderson, which furnished. water to him for distillation purposes, and that the defendants, city of Henderson and Kraver, jointly and singly, wilfully and wantonly had discharged, by means of their respective sewers, into Canoe Creek, such a quantity of filth, offal, human excrement, and slop from the distillery, that it had poisoned the waters of the stream, killed the fish therein, and had thereby created such a stench that it poisoned the air which surrounded their homes, rendering them scarcely habitable, and rendered the waters unfit for use, so that their stock were unable to use it, and they had to provide water for their stock elsewhere; created sickness of themselves and families, and rendered their homes of less value to them; that the city of Henderson, by an ordinance, required all citizens along its sewerage system to connect with it, and thereby caused all of the filth from their premises, water closets, and bath tubs to go into Canoe Creek; that the appellants for five years last past had wilfully and wantonly allowed the filth discharged by them into Canoe Creek to remain there an unreasonable and unnecessary length of time, which resulted in the conditions of the stream, as above stated.

The city of Henderson, by its answer, traversed the affirmative allegations of the petitions, and in addition [678]*678to that alleged that it had constructed sewers, which emptied into Canoe Creek, because it was the natural drainage for the sewage; that the sewers were well constructed and reasonably used, and that the sewage drained into the creek, which was the same or similar to that which had been drained into the creek for more than fifteen years before the institution of the suits, and that it had obtained and continued to exercise its right to drain its sewage into the creek by continuously doing so, and relied upon the statute of limitations of fifteen years as a bar to the appellees ’ causes of action.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
177 S.W. 286, 164 Ky. 674, 1915 Ky. LEXIS 466, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kraver-v-smith-kyctapp-1915.