PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1881. CLAIM FOR DAMAGE.

Patea Mail, 14 June 1881, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1881. CLAIM FOR DAMAGE.

An action against the County Council for damage to building section is being brought by Mr A. Wood, pilot, as owner of property. The claim will be heard in the E.M. Court on Friday. Mr Wood built a house on the flat below Jackson’s cottage, and the County Council then continued the Bedfordstreet drain by making a box culvert to carry the surface drainage past Jackson’s pool, where flood water had previously lodged and had made part of Jackson’s section useless. The Council received frequent complaints before consenting to do anything. To escape one claim for damages, the Council continued the drain to a point past Jackson’s pool, leaving the water to discharge down the slope and lodge on the flat; and having done that, the present claim is the resultThe theory was that the flat is all sand, and the water would not lodge there, but filter through. Facts proved otherwise. It is common experience that flood water carries detritus off a metalled road, and where such water lodges it must deposit the fine clay held in solution, forming in time a bed as impervious as a puddled bottom. The question between Mr Wood and the Council is one of legal responsibility, and nothing else. It is not denied that the course of a. particular drain was altered to the extent of causing the outflow to run to a place where it had not run immediately before the claimant’s house was built. The Council were legally entitled to run drainage along its usual course, but the question as to which is or was the usual course may have to be determined by evidence. When a Council raises a road> the Council takes the consequence of any change of drainage. If this drainage came off the County road and lodged where drainage had not lodged before, who is liable for the damage ? The Patea Town Board is involved indirectly in the case, for there was a written engagement between the two bodies that i the water were carried by culvert past Jackson’s pool, and if the water were then found to lodge instead of filtering away, the Town Board would carry the drain forward. This seems to leave the Town Board morally responsible for what has happened, and no question would have arisen if that Board had done what it agreed to do. It has been contended by the Chairman of the Town Board that the County Council did not put in the kind of culvert agreed for, and that therefore the bargain is off. It seems to us this detail does not affect the thing aimed at, which was to have the water carried past Jackson’s pool. It has been so carried, and the Town Board’s obligation now comes in to carry the drain farther, which means to the river. But in the meantime who is to pay Wood’s claim for damage ? His grievance is that he had to bank up the house to keep out the surrounding lake of water after heavy rains, and that he has been receiving 5s a week less for rent than if the house had no water nuisance to lower the value. He seeks to recover the difference in rent, besides direct damage. If the County Council has to pay the money, how will the Town Board stand ?