Wotring v. Department of Highways

PETROPLUS, JUDGE:

Claimant filed a claim for $900.00 alleging damages to a private driveway, formerly old State Route 7, a cornfield and crops on his property due to water overflows after a heavy rain on June 14, 1971, which could not be adequately carried away by the drainage ditches and culverts maintained by the respondent on a reconstructed State Route 7 near Kingwood in Preston County, West Virginia.

The respondent answered saying claimant’s claim, if any, resulted from the natural flow of surface water, a common enemy, and that the drainage resulted from an Act of God and was damnum…