Williams v. Southern Railway Co.

417 S.W.2d 573, 57 Tenn. App. 215, 1966 Tenn. App. LEXIS 206
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 19, 1966
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 417 S.W.2d 573 (Williams v. Southern Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Southern Railway Co., 417 S.W.2d 573, 57 Tenn. App. 215, 1966 Tenn. App. LEXIS 206 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

COOPER, J.

This action was brought by Maranda Williams against the Southern Railway Company to recover damages to real estate allegedly caused by an earthslide into a railroad cut, made and maintained by the defendant railroad adjacent to the property owned by the plaintiff. On trial, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the amount of $2500.00. The trial judge, in ruling on motions for new trial, sustained the defendant railroad’s motion and directed a verdict for the'railroad. The plaintiff appealed.

Plaintiff has assigned numerous errors, most of which are directed to various rulings of the trial judge during trial or to the court’s charge. These assignments are not now material in view of the trial judge’s action in directing a verdict for the defendant. The only material assignment, as we see it, is whether there is any material evidence to require the submission of liability on the part of the railroad to the jury and, if so, does the undisputed evidence show plaintiff’s right to recover is barred by either the one year or threé year statute' of limitations.

Evidence of subsidence of plaintiff ’s property and its cause as set forth in the bill of exceptions under consideration is substantially the same as that introduced in the earlier trial of this cause (see Williams v. Southern Railway, 55 Tenn.App. 81, 396 S.W.2d 98), wherein we stated:

[218]*218“* * * [T]he record shows that the railroad cut was made in [the early 1900’s] with a ‘one to one’ slope, and, other-than the removal of dirt from slides covering the tracks of the railroad, the cut had not been materially altered since its construction.

t recorc[ does not show the date of construction of plaintiff’s house, but from pictures in the record, it is obvious that it would be classed as an ‘older’ house. [Plaintiff guesses that it is 60 to 65 years old]. The pictures also show that the house sets approximately 50. feet from the edge of the railroad cut.

“In March, 1963, after a heavy rain, there was a large landslide into the railroad cut. As a result, a portion of plaintiff’s property, extending some 6 to 9 feet from the back property line toward the house, fell away to a depth of approximately one foot [now to a depth of 3 feet]. Cracks or faults, indicating the beginning of a slide, appeared some 8-10 feet inside plaintiff’s property line. Further, plaintiff testified that as the result of the slide, the corner of her house cracked and separated, and introduced in evidence a picture showing a crack in an interior concrete block wall, which she attributed to the subsidence of the property.

“Raymond Franklin, a civil engineer employed by Blount County to do ‘the engineering involved with the construction of the county roads.’, was the only witness who undertook to testify as to the cause of the landslide. He stated the slide was ‘due to erosion, that is water slipping over the bank’; [that when the bank became saturated, the dirt slid down the bank, seeking level ground]. ”

As pointed out in the earlier opinion, ‘ ‘ ‘ The liability of an adjoining owner for the removal of lateral support [219]*219from Ms neighbor’s land in its natural state is not dependent upon the lack of skill or care he exercised in making the excavation, but is absolute. An adjoining-landowner who by making an excavation takes away the lateral support of his neighbor’s ground, so as to cause it of its own weight to fall, slide or break away, is liable for the injury reardless of how carefully he excavated * * * [and] * * * it is immaterial whether the falling of the soil is called ‘caving’ or ‘washing’ [or erosion], provided it is the natural and proximate result of removing the lateral support. Though the soil falls of its own weight and pressure, the liability for injury to the land attaches; and the fact that the falling of the soil was due to the action of the elements does not constitute a defense.’ ” 1 Am.Jur.2d secs. 43 and 44, pp. 721 and 723; see also, Restatement of Torts, sec. 817(1), p. 187.

With these authorities in mind, we are of the opinion expressed in our earlier decision in this cause, that when the above evidence is considered in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, as we are required to do, a jury reasonably could find that the subsidence of plaintiff’s land was the natural and proximate result of the removal of lateral support by the defendant, and that the soil fell of its own weight and pressure under the action of the elements.

The defendant insists that the trial judge was justified in directing a verdict in view of evidence that the defendant railroad had purchased the right-of-way on which the “cut” was constructed from plaintiff’s predecessor in title, it being the contention of the defendant that the injury suffered by plaintiff was “necessarily incident to the proposed improvement” and must have been contemplated by plaintiff’s predecessor in title and [220]*220the railroad in fixing the consideration for the deed: To sustain this insistence the defendant cites ns to numerous cases, among which is Hord v. Holston River Railroad Co., 122 Tenn. 399, 123 S.W. 637; Fuller v. City of Chattanooga, 22 Tenn.App. 110, 118 S.W.2d 886; Jones v. Oman Construction Co., 28 Tenn.App. 1, 184 SW.2d 568; East Tennessee Natural Cas Co. v. Peltz, 38 Tenn.App. 100, 270 S.W.2d 591; Hawkins v. Dawn, 208 Tenn. 544, 347 S.W.2d 480, which voice the general rule that the condemnation of a right of way or a right of way deed embraces by implication all damages necessarily incident to making the land effectual for the particular purpose for which it was acquired. These cases, however, recognize an exception to the rule where the particular loss or damage was not within the contemplation of the owner and, if advanced, would have been rejected as speculative and conjectural. See to the same effect Morgan County v. Neff, 36 Tenn.App. 407, 256 S.W,2d 61, 63.

“In Carter County v. Street, [36] Tenn.App. [166], 252 S.W.2d 803, * * * we applied the exception because it appeared the landowner had no information when he executed a deed to the right of way that cuts and fills would be of such magnitude that slides would result in damage to his remaining lands. As supporting that view ihe opinion cites Milhous v. State Highway Department, 194 S.C. 33, 8 S.E.2d 852, 128 A.L.R. 1186, in which the Supreme Court of South Carolina held that a landowner who had never been shown a map of the road construction when he executed a deed to the right of way would not be cut off from water damages caused by grading the roadway in a manner to interfere with natural drainage. ” Morgan County v. Neff, 36 Tenn.App. 407, 256 S.W.2d 61, 63.

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Bluebook (online)
417 S.W.2d 573, 57 Tenn. App. 215, 1966 Tenn. App. LEXIS 206, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-southern-railway-co-tennctapp-1966.