The High Court set aside a Circuit Court order and dismissed a Waterford couple’s claim against Waterford Corporation over sewage water that damaged the parquet floor of their home.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Michael Peart on 29 February 2008, found that the council’s sewage works were probably connected to the water backing up through an old culvert beneath the plaintiffs’ house. But the court said the precise cause could not be established, and concluded that the council was not legally liable.
The plaintiffs owned and lived in a 17th-century building at 1 Dyehouse Lane, which they had bought around 1984 and later renovated. On 3 March 2000, they discovered that the living-room floor had buckled and that there was a noxious smell. Investigations identified sewage water entering through a brick culvert beneath the room and extending under the pavement towards Dyehouse Street and Grattan Quay.
The council had recently carried out major sewer-renewal works on Grattan Quay, reconnecting known branch drains to a new main sewer. The council said it did not know the old culvert existed; it appeared on none of its maps or records. A street drain inspection and dye test had found no connection between the known sewer and the plaintiffs’ home. After the culvert was found to be blocked, the council diverted it into the new sewer, and the problem stopped.
The judge considered it probable that the works had either left the culvert unconnected to the new system or blocked or damaged its outlet. He stressed that this was an inference: no investigation had determined the precise cause. The court also rejected the council’s argument that the plaintiffs were to blame for failing to install a vertical damp-proof course, finding no evidence that the regulations relied on applied to their renovation or that such a course would have stopped water entering through the culvert.
On negligence, the court accepted that the council owed the plaintiffs a duty to take reasonable care not to damage their property. It held, however, that this duty did not require the council to excavate the whole street on the chance of finding an unmapped culvert there was no basis to suspect. The judge therefore found no breach of duty and did not need to decide whether the damage was legally foreseeable or whether imposing a duty of that scope would be just and reasonable.
The nuisance claim also failed because the council had neither knowledge nor reasonable means of knowing about the culvert. The judge did not finally decide whether the conditions for liability under Rylands v Fletcher were met, but held that the council’s lack of knowledge defeated that claim in the circumstances. The court expressly rejected breach of statutory duty and trespass. It then vacated the Circuit Court order and dismissed the claim.