147 Iowa 247 | Iowa | 1910
Plaintiff’s premises consist of four lots in a portion of the defendant city west of the Cedar River and alongside the highway which is on the east line of
While a city has no right to improve its streets in such a negligent manner as to cause injury to an abutting property owner by throwing an unnecessary burden upon him or causing injury which he might have protected himself against if he had reasonable warning (Hume v. Des Moines (Iowa), 125 N. W. 846), it is unquestionably the right of the city to make its streets passable, and in doing so to provide for the passage of surface water in drains or culverts through or under them, and, if the method adopted is reasonably suitable for the purpose, the abutting property owner can not complain that he has not been relieved of a burden of drainage to which his land was already subjected, even though the improvement of the street operates to some extent to his detriment. The city certainly has no greater duty to care for surface water in the protection of property abutting on its streets than the private owner would have in protecting an adjoining owner from such injury. By statutory provision, now found in Code Supp., section 1989-a53, it is provided that ‘^owners of land may drain the same in the general course of natural drainage by constructing open or covered drains discharging the same into any natural water course or into any natural depression whereby the water will be carried into some natural water course, and, when such drainage is wholly upon the owner’s land, he shall not he liable in damages therefor to any person or persons or corporation.” And in applying these statutory provisions it has been held
The decree of the lower court contemplates some other •disposal by the defendant of the surface water coming through the railway culvert, hut there is nothing in the evidence to indicate that any other disposal could he made, save by the construction of ditches or sewers which shall
We reach the conclusion that the lower court erred in its decree against the defendant, and such decree is therefore reversed.