Waterloo Woolen Manufacturing Co. v. State

118 Misc. 516
CourtNew York Court of Claims
DecidedApril 15, 1922
DocketClaim No. 2085-A
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 118 Misc. 516 (Waterloo Woolen Manufacturing Co. v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Waterloo Woolen Manufacturing Co. v. State, 118 Misc. 516 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1922).

Opinion

Smith, J.

This claim has been filed to recover damages claimed to have been suffered by claimant as the result of the roiling of the waters of Seneca outlet by the state and its contractors in the course of the work of improvement of the Cayuga and Seneca canals pursuant to the provisions of chapter 391 of the Laws of 1909.

Claimant, as its name indicates, is a manufacturer of woolen goods and owns a factory plant located on lands on and adjacent to the northerly bank of Seneca outlet at Waterloo, N. Y. In its manufacturing processes it uses a large amount of water, which, to be suitable for its use, must be clean and clear, reasonably free from sediment. The water used by claimant was that flowing in Seneca outlet, diverted therefrom first through the old Cayuga-Seneca canal, owned by the state, thence through a privately owned fallway or hydraulic canal to claimant’s factory. This use of the water was a property right which claimant owned as an appurtenance to its lands, the ownership of which it has established by prima facie proof uncontroverted by any evidence offered by the state.

In the course of the work of construction of the new or improved Cayuga and Seneca canals, pursuant.to the provisions of chapter 391 of the Laws of 1909, the state by its contractors conducted quite extensive dredging operations in the bed of Seneca outlet upstream from claimant’s lands for the purpose of forming a channel of sufficient width and depth of water for navigation purposes.

These dredging operations extended from Waterloo to Seneca lake, a distance of between six and seven miles. The dredging was not confined at all places to the bed of the stream, but, at points where it was necessary in order to better the alignment or reduce the curvature of the channel, cuts were made into the banks and through uplands forming bends in the stream. Of the total length of the canal from Waterloo to Geneva, the aggregate length of the cuts through uplands was about 3,900 feet. At many other places the banks of the stream were sliced off to afford the required width and alignment.

The dredging and excavation work was done by the use of a float’ng hydraulic dredge, by means of which the material to be excavated was loosened and, suspended in water, pumped ashore behind dikes built to retain it. This process necessarily and [518]*518unavoidably roiled the water flowing in the stream and in this roiled and turbid state it flowed down to claimant’s factory in a condition unfit for use in its factory.

The dredging work started on or about August 13, 1913, and continued until about August 13, 1915. It is conceded by claimant that the dredging operations were intelligently carried on, without negligence or delay, and that the roiled and turbid condition of the water was the inevitable and unavoidable result of the performance of the work.

To render the water fit for use during the period of dredging, claimant was obliged to and did install a filtration plant, the installation of which was begun about October, 1913, and completed in December of that year. The operation of the filtration plant removed the sediment from the water and cleansed it so that no damage resulted from the use of the water after the completion of the installation of the filtration plant.

However, the manufacturing processes of claimant were so carried on that some goods, the manufacture of which had commenced before the filtration plant was completed, were not finished and in condition for market until after the installation of the filtration plant. These goods, or a portion of them, when finished were of inferior quality due to the dirty water used at the initial stages of their manufacture, and other portions, due to the same cause, were necessarily refinished or redyed, or otherwise rehandled, thus adding to the cost of manufacture. Also, it is claimed, the use of the filtration plant added something to claimant’s operating costs.

The facts as have been stated have been established by the evidence, and in fact are not seriously, if at all, disputed by the state, and they furnish the basis of the claim against the state.

At the close of claimant’s case and again at the close of the whole case, the attorney-general moved for dismissal of the claim upon the ground that the facts proven are insufficient to constitute a valid claim or cause of action against the state.

The specific proposition urged by the attorney-general in support of the motion to dismiss is that the work which the state was prosecuting was the improvement of the navigability of a navigable stream, a public work, in the public interest, pursuant to the specific authority, direction and command of the legislature, and that claimant’s damage being the consequential, not the direct, result of such work, performed without negligence or trespass, is damnum absque injuria.

Claimant does not question the rule of law invoked by the state but contends that it is not applicable to the facts of the [519]*519instant claim for the reasons that its damages are not consequential but direct; in fact that they result from an appropriation of its property for which it is entitled to compensation (U. S. Const. Amend. V; State Const. art. I, § 6); that Seneca outlet was not, in its natural state, and is not a navigable stream, and that by virtue of the provisions of chapter 147 of the Laws of 1903 and chapter 391 of the Laws of 1909, under which the work was performed, as well as of section 47 of the Canal Law, the legislature has expressly assumed liability for all damages resulting from the state’s work of canal improvement and maintenance.

I find nothing in chapter 147 of the Laws of 1903 or chapter 391 of the Laws of 1909 which waives any defense or immunity from liability available to the state or by virtue of which the state has assumed any new liability in a case such as this. It is true it has been held that by section 3 of the act of 1903, New bridges shall be built over the canals to take the place of existing bridges wherever required, or rendered necessary by the new location of the canals,” the state assumed Eability for the cost of replacing bridges over the improved canals (Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. v. Canal Board, 204 N. Y. 471), but in the same case it was held that but for the provision quoted, there would be no such EabiEty. Claimant’s brief quotes from the opinion of Judge Gray in Fulton Light, Heat & Power Co. v. State of N. Y., 200 N. Y. 400, 410, the expression The act [Chapter 365 of the Laws of 1906, amending chapter 147 of the Laws of 1903] provides that * * * the Court of Claims should have jurisdiction to determine the amount of compensation for lands, structures and waters so appropriated, or damages caused by the work of improvement,” but the italicised words do not appear in the statute and in Judge Gray’s opinion do not purport to have been quoted from it.

In the Fulton case there was a formal appropriation of claimant’s lands and water rights for which it was held compensation must be made, such compensation necessarily including not only the value of the lands and water rights appropriated, but the damage to unappropriated lands caused by the appropriation, which made the language quoted from Judge Gray apt and appropriate to the facts of that case.

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Related

Van Alstyne v. Rochester Telephone Corp.
163 Misc. 258 (City of New York Municipal Court, 1937)
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122 Misc. 545 (New York State Court of Claims, 1924)
Waterloo Woolen Manufacturing Co. v. State
121 Misc. 825 (New York State Court of Claims, 1923)
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118 Misc. 874 (New York State Court of Claims, 1922)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
118 Misc. 516, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waterloo-woolen-manufacturing-co-v-state-nyclaimsct-1922.