Sewer

A subterranean passage for drainage, usually constructed and maintained by a municipal corporation. Properly, a trench artificially made for the purpose of carrying water into the sea, river, or some other place of reception. Crabb, R. P. s. 113; Bennett v. New Bedford, 110 Mass. 433. The authority to construct public sewers is not incident to corporate powers, if ample provision is made by general statutes; Bulger v. Eden, 82 Me. 352, 19 Atl. 829, 9 L. R. A. 205. The sewers of a city are its private property, and the citizens are alone interested therein; the general public of the state at large have no interest in them, and therefore the city may be liable for negligence in their construction; Donahoe v. Kansas City, 136 Mo. 657, 38 S. W. 571. The construction of a sewer is a private municipal enterprise, for the negligent control of which the city will be liable, under a charter providing for a revenue from its use; Ostrander v. Lansing, 111 Mich. 693, 70 N. W. 332. Merely granting a city authority by its charter to construct sewers to carry off refuse to a river does not make such use of the sewers a governmental act, freeing the city from personal liability for injuries therefrom; Platt v. Waterbury, 72 Conn. 531, 45 Atl. 154, 48 L. R. A. 691, 77 Am. Rep. 335. Legislative authority to a municipality to open and construct a sewer in a public street does not exempt the municipality from the duty of exercising due care in performing the work; Koontz v. District of Columbia, 24 App. D. C. 59; but a city is held not liable for damages resulting from its negligent and defective construction of a sluice for drainage, which it, since, to create such liability, the injurious act milst have been within the scope of its corporate powers as prescribed by its charter; Betham v. Philadelphia, 196 Pa. 302, 46 Atl. 448. Damages for the negligent construction of a sewer must be confined to actual, not prospective, damages at the time of suit; Nashville v. Comar, 88 Tenn. 415, 12 S. W. 1027, 7

A fresh-water trench or little river, encompassed with banks on both sides, to drain off surplus water into the sea. Cowell. Properly, a trench artificially made for the purpose of carrying water into the sea, (or a river or pond.) Crabb, Real Prop. § 113.

In its modern and more usual sense, a "sewer" means an under-ground or covered channel used for the drainage of two or more Separate buildings, as opposed to a "drain," which is a channel used for carrying off the drainage of one building or set of buildings in one curtilage. Sweet. See Valparaiso v; Parker, 148 Ind. 379, 47 N. E. 330; Fuchs v. St. Louis, 167 Mo. 620, 67 S. W. 610, 57 L. R. A. 136; State Board of Health v. Jersey City, 55 N. J. Eq. 116, 36 Atl. 835; Aldrich v. Paine, 106 Iowa, 461, 76 N. W. 812.

— Commissioners of sewers. In English law. The court of commissioners of sewers is a temporary tribunal erected by virtue of a commission under the great seal. Its jurisdiction is to overlook the repairs of sea-banks and seawalls, and the cleansing of public rivers, streams, ditches, and other conduits whereby any waters are carried off, and is confined to such county or particular district as the commission expressly names. Brown.

Will apply to an underground structure for conducting the water of a natural stream, as well as to a structure used exclusively for surface flpw.s The duties of municipal authorities, in adopting a general plan of drainage, and determining when and where sewers shall be built, of what size ajid at what level, are of a quasi judicial nature, involving the exercise of deliberate judgment and large discretion, depending upon considerations affecting the public health and general convenience throughout an extensive tei Titory. The exercise of such judgment and discretion, in the selection and adoption of the general plan or system of drainage, is not subject to revision by a court or jury in a private action for not properly draining a sufficient lot of land. But the construction and repair of sewers, according to the general plan so adopted, are simply ministerial duties; and for negh- ^ence in so constructing a sewer, or keeping it in repair, the municipality which has constructed and owns the sewer may be sued by a person whose property is thereby injured. ' See Drainage; Negligence; Repair, 3.

May apply to an underground structure for conducting the waters of a natural stream, as well as to one used exclusively for the surface flow. Bennett V. New Bedford, 110 Mass. 433.