Peterson v. City of Santa Rosa

California Supreme Court Dec 20, 1897 No. S. F. No. 671Published

Before: Searls

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Holding. The court affirmed a perpetual injunction against a municipality for polluting a creek with sewage, holding that a riparian owner has a right to the natural purity of the stream and that such pollution constitutes an actionable nuisance.

Issues

Whether a municipal corporation may be enjoined from polluting a stream with sewage that renders the water unfit for domestic use.
Whether a court of equity should grant an injunction when the defendant has implemented a new sewage treatment process after the initial trial.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The doctrine is well established that the fouling or pollution of water in a stream by such sewage constitutes a nuisance and affords sufficient ground for relief by injunction.”

“Her right as a riparian owner was, not only to have the water of the stream flow over her land in its usual volume, but to have it flow in its natural purity”

Synopsis

Injunction—Relative Equities.—A court of chancery will not interpose by injunction as of course after the right of the plaintiff has been established at law; but it will consider the circumstances, the consequences of such action, and the real equity of the case; and each case must be governed by the circumstances that surround it, and by relative equities.

Id.—Rights of Riparian Owner—Pollution of Stream by Sewage—Nuisance—Injunction against Municipal Corporation.—A riparian owner has a right of property in the waters of the stream, as appurtenant to the land, and is entitled to have it flow in its natural purity, and may enjoin as an actionable nuisance the pollution of the stream by a municipal corporation which has caused sewage to flow therein, so as substantially to impair its value for ordinary purposes, and to render it at times offensive to the senses and unfit for domestic use, and the fact that the defendant is a municipal corporation does not enhance its rights, or palliate its wrongs in this respect.

Ib.—Supplemental Answeb—Consteuction of Sewage Plant—Deodobization of Sewage—Fitness fob Domestic Use—Bubden of Pboof—Pbesumption.—A supplemental answer by the municipal corporation, setting forth that, since the commencement of the action, it had constructed and was operating a sewage plant, which rendered the sewage water clear and inodorous, does not constitute a defense to the injunction, in the absence of a showing that the water was rendered palatable and fit for use; and prior findings having established that the water of the stream was rendered unfit for use by the sewage, the burden of showing a change in that respect rested upon the defendant, and it must be presumed, in the absence of such a showing, that the water in that respect had not undergone a change.

SEARLS, C. This is an action to restrain the defendant, a municipal corporation, from polluting the waters of Santa Rosa creek by discharging or permitting to run into said stream, above the lands of the plaintiff, any of the sewage from the city of Santa Rosa, the defendant herein, and to recover damages for past injury.

Plaintiff had judgment for one dollar damages and a perpetual injunction restraining defendant as prayed in her complaint. Defendant appeals from so much of the decree as awards an injunction. The cause comes up on the judgment-roll.

The record shows that the cause was tried before a jury and a verdict rendered in favor of plaintiff for one dollar; that thereafter, and before the findings were prepared, the cause was opened and testimony taken in support of the “amended supplemen[389]tal answer” of defendant filed May 4, 1896 (the day of the jury trial). The eleventh finding by the court is in reference to the showing on such “amended supplemental answer,” the object of which answer was to show to the court that defendant had, since the filing of its amended answer, been engaged in and had about completed a sewage disposal plant of approved kind to filter, precipitate, deodorize, and disinfect and render pure and harmless all the sewage of said city, etc., all of which would be completed and in full operation within a day or two after May 4, 1896. We condense in part and quote in part the findings as follows:

The city of Santa Rosa, defendant, at all the times herein mentioned, is and was a municipal corporation under the laws of the state of California, having a population of about seven thousand inhabitants. In 1886 and since that date it has constructed and maintained a sewer system for the purpose of receiving and carrying off from within its limits all the sewage, garbage, filth, and refuse matter collecting and accumulating in the defendant city.

For four years last past defendant has had a sewer farm outside of and about one and one-half miles west of the city, containing sixteen and eighty-six one-hundredths acres of land, which it uses in connection with its sewer system as a dumping ground and place of deposit for its sewage, garbage, filth, etc.

That under and pursuant to an ordinance of the city, cesspools, privy-vaults, etc., are required to be and are connected with and discharge" into the sewers, and by and through them are conducted to the “sewer farm,” and during high water a portion of said sewage was discharged into Santa Rosa creek in said city.

Peterson v. City of Santa Rosa

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