City of Leavenworth v. Duffy
City of Leavenworth v. Duffy
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of'the court was delivered by
This was. an.action by Duffy against the city of Leavenworth, the Rapid Transit Railway Company and the Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern Railway Company to recover damage to property in the city of Leavenworth occasioned by a change in the grade of a street upon which the property
The first assignment of error is that the court permitted an attorney to appear for the plaintiff in the trial of this suit who had been attorney for the city, and had filed the answer in the cause for the city upon which the case was tried. Under the well-established rules of law, this action of the court waan irregularity which would require the court to gran
It is next contended that there was no allegation of special damages in the petition. It is sufficient to say, in answer to this, that no special damage, within the meaning of the rule of law requiring such to be specially pleaded, was sought to be recovered, nor was there any such recovery. Counsel for the city seem to confound this rule with another rule of law, that where a party seeks to recover damages for a public nuisance, he must plead and show a damage peculiar to himself and not such as is suffered generally by the • public, The facts alleged in the petition sufficiently conform to this latter rule. It is true that as an element of damage to the property the plaintiff alleged in the petition that his ownership extended to the center of the street, and that by reason of the construction of the road his ingress and egress to and from his property were cut off. But these allegations were merely incident to the general allegation that the construction of the road and the change in the grade of the street resulted in the deterioration of the value of his property. It is further contended, in the fifth assignment, that these two allegations of damage are the only allegations of damage peculiar to him occasioned by the nuisance. This is a misconstruction of
The sixth assignment of error covers the same contention.
The seventh assignment of error is likewise based upon a misconception of the allegations of the petition. One of the things occasioned by the construction of the road and the raising of the grade of the street was casting the water accumulated thereon upon the plaintiff’s property, no precautions having been taken to prevent that result.
Under the ninth assignment of error, it is contended that some of the special findings of the jury are not true; that some of the answers given thereto are evasive and unsatisfactory, and that as a whole they indicate partiality, and for that reason a new trial should be awarded. We fail to find any findings of the jury that are not sustained by some evidence, and the answers are as, clear and specific as they could be under the evidence.
The tenth assignment of error relates to the introduction of evidence. We find nothing in the record pointed out by counsel that amounts to such an erroneous admission of evidence as would warrant us in setting aside the verdict.
The eleventh assignment relates to instructions, which are not quoted, as the rules of this court require, so that we cannot say, without going into the record to hunt them out, that there was error committed in this regard, and we decline to make the examination. The same seems to apply to the twelfth and thirteenth assignments of error.
Under the fourteenth assignment of error, it is contended that the court erred in rendering judgment for
The fifteenth assignment is that the court erred in giving Duffy a judgment for his costs in the case. There is no allegation in the petition that the claim was presented to the city council. It is an action against the city for an unliquidated claim, and section 129, chapter 32, of the General Statutes of 1897 (Gen. Stat. 1899, § 843), expressly., provides that no costs shall be allowed in such a case unless the claim has been presented to the council before suit. See, also, City of Atchison v. King, 9 Kan. 551. Hence it was error to adjudge costs to the plaintiff. This error can be remedied without a new trial.
The sixteenth contention is that under the pleading the city was not liable in any event. In support of this contention, counsel cite Kansas City v. Brady, 52 Kan. 297, 34 Pac. 884. The decision of that case has no application to the facts herein. The findings of the jury there were that the city was not guilty of any act of negligence contributing to the plaintiff’s injury; that the damage was occasioned by the wrongful act of a private party in constructing a sewer on its own property, over which the city had no
“An owner of land abutting upon a street is entitled to compensation for any injury to his property which it sustains over and above that sustained in common with other abutting owners or the public in general, resulting from a change in the grade of the street, and the fact that the change in the grade is merely a change from the natural grade to the official grade is immaterial.”
This goes further than is necessary to sustain the judgment. The damages awarded the plaintiff were occasioned by a change of the official grade of the street after the plaintiff had constructed his building to conform to the established grade. We find no error requiring a reversal of the judgment. It will, however, be modified by eliminating therefrom the item of $570 interest and the item of costs adjudged to the plaintiff, and the case will be remanded to the district court with directions to make these modifications therein. In all other matters the judgment is affirmed. The costs of this court will be divided evenly between the plaintiff and defendant in error.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.