Greenwich Post reports today yet another assault on our coffers: a "Victim" sues town for sewer back-up . Look - I certainly regret that this poor lady had raw sewage sloshed around her basement and that foul odors permeated her home but without more - an allegation as to how, exactly, the town was negligent, I don't want her reaching into my pocket. Sewers back up for all sorts of reasons but most of those: tree roots invading lines, too much stuff entering through the toilet, you name it; are the responsibility of the homeowner, not her fellow citizens. "Emotional harm? "Punitive damages?" 'Attorney's fees?". Somebody hand this lady a bucket of bleach and a mop and tell her to get over it.
I may be being unfair here and the lack of specificity may be due to lousy reporting by the Greenwich Post rather than lousy lawyering (on the subject of reporting, it adds nothing to learn that the litigant's a single mother and unemployed - irrelevant!) I'm not reassured however, by this quote from our former First Selectman, Roger Peterson, who represents the woman and who is demanding that his former constituents pay his fees:
“What happened to her is extraordinarily egregious that the town has not stepped in to remedy this situation and to compensate her for the damages she has suffered."
"What happened to her is extraordinarily egregious that the town"? Did Roger screw up the English language like this when he was in government? All I remember of the guy was him running around Greenwich in his (town-supplied) car, trying to arrest people by showing them his phony Police Commissioner badge.
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6 comments:
Chris, In defense of the Post (did I just write that?!), I think the fact this woman is a single mother who has strained finances goes to show that this isn't some bratty back country house wife looking for quick cash from the Milk Cow (Town of Greenwich). In a legal case her situation has no bearing, I think it was the long-suppressed lawyer in you being overly lawyerly.
The real question is what does the law say and has there been cases dealing with this situation? I am sure this is not the first time this has happened.
-Stanwich
Hi, Chris!
Yeah, I noticed Roger's mangled grammar, too, but decided not to take him to task for it. But I'm glad you did!
Like any negligence case, you have to prove negligence. I once represented a telephone company that, digging to put in a pole, hit an unmapped sewer line (there are lots of those in Greenwich, surprisingly). Raw sewage flooded someone's basement, the owner cleaned it up and probably would have been satisfied with that had the phone company not come back a week later to finish the job and hit the damn line again. Same result. At trial, I had the happy homeowner admit that the first time was what ruined all his posessions but by the second flooding he'd moved all his ruined stuff out.I put the foreman on, he explained about the unmapped sewers (for which it wasn't liable) and then I asked him about the second time - "how'd that happen?" I asked. "We screwed up", he said. Verdict: The company wasn't liable for the first instance because it had no reasonable means to know the line was there but it was liable for the second incident because they were now on notice. Since all the damage ocurred the first time and no damages the second (other than the poor homeowner having to hose out his garage) no damages were awarded. The phone company and I were delighted, the homeowner less so. Ah, the genius of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence!
This is just an unusual example of reverse physics whereby "sh*t runs up hill" instead of down. Most likely it can be attributed to the rarefied nature of Greenwich "sh*t".
:-)
Retired IB'er
Stanwich - the direct answer to your question about who pays is more or less, the line leading from your house to the public main is your responsibility the town-owned line in the street is everybody's (everybody who pays taxes in Greenwich, anyway). Tree roots, ground-heave caused breaks, what have you in the "house line", for want of a better term, are the home owner's problem and breaks out under the street are the town's. I believe there is insurance for mishaps involving the private section of the line but you should check with your carrier and see if it requires a separate rider or even a different policy. It's an expensive job to dig up and repair these things, as this lady must have discovered. Her success or failure in this suit will depend on where the pipe broke or was plugged.
Follow up. If I were writing a law exam question, I think I'd put the break (or better yet, the plug) right at the junction where the private line meets the public line. Who pays then? I have no idea, but it would make the little bastards sweat for awhile.
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