City of Fort Collins v. Wallace
City of Fort Collins v. Wallace
Opinion of the Court
On October 19, 1907, appellee Wallace (hereinafter referred to as plaintiff) filed her complaint alleging ownership of two certain lots in the city of Fort Collins, and charging the defendant with having so negligently and carelessly constructed a sewer and the outlet thereof as to cause great quantities of sewerage matter to accumulate upon and near the plaintiff’s premises, to her great damage. This states in substance her second cause of action. Her first cause- of action having been dismissed by the court need not be further referred to.
The case was tried to the court without a jury, resulting in a decree in plaintiff’s favor awarding her damages in the sum of five hundred and four dollars and a perpetual injunction restraining the city “from keeping and maintaining the said sewer as the same is now kept and maintained, so that said filth and sewerage matter is caused to flow on and accumulate on or near the premises of the plaintiff.” It appears from the evidence that the immediate line of sewer pipe which discharged upon or near plaintiff’s premises was a part of a system that accommodated a considerable section of the city, and that the sewerage from a large area was assembled by connecting pipe lines which converged into the particular pipe line of which complaint was made. The discharge .was in an arm of the river, which ran but very little, if any, water except at certain seasons of the year, and at a point near to or upon the plaintiff’s premises. The velocity of the sewerage flow was diminished, after being discharged from the pipe line into the arm of the river, from 8 feet, in the pipe line, to 1.65 feet per second. This difficulty was accentuated by boulders that were permitted to remain in the channel of the river bed,
Technically, there may be some basis for criticizing the pleadings and the issues upon which the case was tried, but the record indicates a disposition on the part
Judgment Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.