Roberts Realty Corp. v. City of Great Falls

500 P.2d 956, 160 Mont. 144, 1972 Mont. LEXIS 368
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 6, 1972
DocketNo. 12093
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 500 P.2d 956 (Roberts Realty Corp. v. City of Great Falls) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Roberts Realty Corp. v. City of Great Falls, 500 P.2d 956, 160 Mont. 144, 1972 Mont. LEXIS 368 (Mo. 1972).

Opinion

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE JAMES T. HARRISON

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

This is an appeal by the City of Great Falls from a judgment entered in the district court of Cascade County upon a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs in the amount of $15,894.

The record discloses that this action arose out of water damage to plaintiffs’ real property located in downtown Great Falls caused by the bursting of an adjacent water main. Specifically, the break occurred at approximately 2:55 p.m. on January 25,1969, and flooded the basement of the Maverick Bar, located at the corner of Central Avenue and Second Street. The main precipitating the flood was a 12" cast iron [147]*147distribution, line installed by the City in 1930 along Second Street between First Avenue South and First Avenue North.

From the time the break occurred until the City finally succeeded in shutting off the water at approximately 4:35 p.m., it is estimated that one and one-quarter million gallons of water escaped the main. Most of this amount coursed through the basement of the Maverick Bar, beneath the sidewalk, and up through heavy iron loading doors in the sidewalk with such force that water spouted three feet above the sidewalk level. Even after the main was shut off, the City water department had to continue pumping water from plaintiffs’ basement until the early morning hours of the following day. The following sequence of events transpired from the time of the break until the water was shut off.

Donald Sponheim, plaintiffs’ tenant, observed water rapidly filling the Maverick’s basement almost immediately after the break occurred at 2:55 p.m. He tried to call the Great Falls City water department at the time of his discovery; despite letting the phone ring probably eight, nine, or ten times, he received no answer. Sponheim next called both the police and fire departments for emergency assistance. The police were then able to contact a water department employee, Sulo Korin, via two-way radio and inform him of the location of the break. Korin, the water plant operator, had been observing a pressure recordation device prior to the time of the police call and had observed a drop in pressure about 2:55 p.m. but was unable to direct a response to it because the recordation device does not indicate where the loss of pressure has occurred.

Another City water department employee, Charles Worn-bold, overheard the radio conversation between the police and Korin whereupon he left his work elsewhere in the city and drove to the scene of the break. Wombold testified he arrived at the scene within four minutes after hearing the radio conversation. In about 15 minutes other city employees [148]*148arrived to help Wombold at the valve in the First Avenue South-Second Street intersection.

Jack Boettcher, a foreman for the water department also arrived in the area of the break during the time Wombold was working on one of the valves. Boettcher proceeded to another valve on the broken main, located at the intersection of Central Avenue and Second Street, and with the help of other water department employees tried to shut off the flow of water through that valve. Since the Great Falls water delivery system mains are laid out as a grid system, it was necessary to shut two valves in the main to isolate the break.

The record indicates that due to accumulated ice and snow on the street, the frozen valve gates would not budge for anyone using only a hand key, hand key with extension arm “cheaters”, or even a power-assisted key. In fact, no progress was made toward closing either of the valve gates until one of Boettcher’s assistants suggested they go to the city distribution shop at Ninth Street and First Avenue South and bring back a heating device, called a steamer, to thaw the frozen valve gates. After the steamer was obtained and used on each valve gate, the city crews were able to close the gates and isolate the break.

Boettcher testified it never occurred to him that a steamer would be necessary to shut the valves.

As a result of the foregoing events, the basement of plaintiffs’ Maverick Bar was immediately flooded and remained inundated for at least nine hours and perhaps for as long as thirteen or fourteen hours.

The history of the particular section of main in question, laid in 1930, includes two previous breaks. One major break occurred in 1957, approximately seventeen feet from the 1969 break. Another break occurred in 1962.

One of defendant’s witnesses, Delbert Brick, the Great Falls water and sewer department commissioner, testified that sixty years would be considered a minimum lifespan for such mains. [149]*149Although, the two prior breaks occurred, when the pipe was only halfway into its minimum lifespan, there were apparently no tests or laboratory analyses made to determine the cause of failure. Defendant City introduced no evidence of such tests. In fact, the testimony of the City’s witnesses shows that the City has no standard procedure or checklist to follow in the local examination of main breaks which would enable the City to determine the actual condition of the pipe. The record shows that tests simply are not performed on removed defective pipe. Testimony for the City did indicate that visual inspection for corrosion was made at the time of making service connections and making repairs to the mains. There was admission on the part of the city, however, that even when local, visual inspection of the defective pipe is made, no written reports on the condition of the broken pipe are kept.

Although at one time a map of all breaks was kept by the City, this map was discontinued sometime prior to 1968. The only way records of water main breaks may be found today is by examining water department repair orders, which are kept in chronological order only and cover the whole city, without grouping of breaks by mains or area.

One of plaintiffs’ witnesses, a water department employee, testified at trial that the water department repair orders disclosed the existence of approximately twenty breaks in the downtown area, particularly in a six-block by two-block rectangle encompassing the main in question, in the past ten years. It took the employee about three days to locate the number of breaks recorded for the particular area. He admitted on questioning by the City that this list of “breaks” included repairs to minor leaks not requiring replacement of the main. A civil engineer and former public works director for the City of Great Falls testified that such history of breakage in this area would indicate to him that the piping should be replaced. One of defendant’s own expert witnesses, [150]*150Edward Nurse, stated that such was an unusually high number of breaks in a small area. Nurse, however, stated that such breakage would not indicate replacement.

Delbert Brick, the present water commissioner, stated the City’s replacement formula called for installation of new pipe when the “* * * annual cost of repairing the breaks becomes greater than the annual cost of replacing the main # * *=»_ The City did not enter evidence, however, regarding the cost of repairing any particular main in Great Falls or for the City as a whole. Neither did defendant produce testimony regarding how many breaks are necessary before the repair cost begins to exceed replacement cost.

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Bluebook (online)
500 P.2d 956, 160 Mont. 144, 1972 Mont. LEXIS 368, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roberts-realty-corp-v-city-of-great-falls-mont-1972.