Hawkins v. City of La Grande

In these consolidated cases, defendant City intentionally released sewage-laden water (hereafter, effluent) flooding onto the farms of plaintiffs, killing plaintiffs’ livestock and growing crops, and causing other harm.

Normally, defendant treated its sewage and then pumped the effluent by pipe 5 miles to a river. But the present case arose when weather conditions increased the flow of storm drainage water into the city’s sewers to such an extent that another pump, which the city did not have, would have been needed to pump the increased volume of effluent to the river. No action was taken for…