COMPLAINT STATED NEGLIGENCE CAUSES OF ACTION AGAINST THE TOWN, A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND THE TOWN WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED, AND IT WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED THAT GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY DID NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE TOWN ENGINEER DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY OR DISCRETION TO ACT AS HE DID (THIRD DEPT).
The Third Department determined the complaint stated causes of action in negligence against the town. Plaintiffs operated and owned property on which they were placing fill. The town issued a permit allowing the filling. The fill caused a substantial landslide. The Third Department found that the complaint alleged a special relationship between the town and plaintiffs, and further alleged that the town engineer did not have the discretion to issue the truncated permit which was issued. Therefore the complaint sufficiently alleged governmental immunity could not be invoked:
Plaintiffs alleged that the Town Engineer directly stated to them that he can “override” the requirements of the Town Code “if [he] is confident that the fill will ‘increase stability’ of the slope” and that, on this basis, he did not require plaintiffs to submit all of the mandated components of a fill permit application. The complaint also alleged that defendant was aware of prior landslides along the same creek and that, after the incident on plaintiffs’ property, the Town Engineer cited a recent study indicating that the local soil was prone to landslides but, regardless of this knowledge, he had suggested to third parties that they dispose of fill at the property. …
Alternatively, plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to show that a special relationship existed because defendant assumed positive direction and control in the face of a known, blatant and dangerous safety violation. Plaintiffs alleged that the filling activities at the property “created a blatant risk of catastrophic failure of the bank,” that defendant “had been made aware of this blatant risk when it intervened at the [p]roperty” and that defendant demonstrated control over the property by directing plaintiffs to cease filling activities and obtain a fill permit and referring third parties to the property to dispose of fill. … * * *
The complaint alleges that the Town Code requires that a full application be submitted for a fill permit, the Town Code mandates that the Town Engineer require that all application components be submitted and that, as regards plaintiffs, the Town Engineer did not require submission of a completed application. Considering these Town Code requirements, the Town Engineer did not have the authority to make a discretionary determination to either grant or deny a fill permit until he had received a completed application, which never occurred here because he told plaintiffs that they did not need to submit some of the components of the application that are required under the Town Code … . Normanskill Cr., LLC v Town of Bethlehem, 2018 NY Slip Op 02697, Third Dept 4-19-18
NEGLIGENCE (MUNICIPAL LAW, IMMUNITY, COMPLAINT STATED NEGLIGENCE CAUSES OF ACTION AGAINST THE TOWN, A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND THE TOWN WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED, AND IT WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED THAT GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY DID NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE TOWN ENGINEER DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY OR DISCRETION TO ACT AS HE DID (THIRD DEPT))/MUNICIPAL LAW (NEGLIGENCE, IMMUNITY, COMPLAINT STATED NEGLIGENCE CAUSES OF ACTION AGAINST THE TOWN, A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND THE TOWN WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED, AND IT WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED THAT GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY DID NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE TOWN ENGINEER DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY OR DISCRETION TO ACT AS HE DID (THIRD DEPT))/IMMUNITY (MUNICIPAL LAW, NEGLIGENCE, COMPLAINT STATED NEGLIGENCE CAUSES OF ACTION AGAINST THE TOWN, A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND THE TOWN WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED, AND IT WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED THAT GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY DID NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE TOWN ENGINEER DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY OR DISCRETION TO ACT AS HE DID (THIRD DEPT))/GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY (MUNICIPAL LAW, NEGLIGENCE, COMPLAINT STATED NEGLIGENCE CAUSES OF ACTION AGAINST THE TOWN, A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND THE TOWN WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED, AND IT WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED THAT GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY DID NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE TOWN ENGINEER DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY OR DISCRETION TO ACT AS HE DID (THIRD DEPT))/SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP (NEGLIGENCE, MUNICIPAL LAW, IMMUNITY, COMPLAINT STATED NEGLIGENCE CAUSES OF ACTION AGAINST THE TOWN, A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND THE TOWN WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED, AND IT WAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED THAT GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY DID NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE TOWN ENGINEER DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY OR DISCRETION TO ACT AS HE DID (THIRD DEPT))