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Appeals court hears dispute over stormwater design, maintenance and municipal immunity in Barnstable case
Summary
In Gary Sawyer v. Town of Barnstable (24P.861), the panel considered whether alleged design and maintenance defects in a stormwater BMP caused flooding of a private property and whether municipal immunities under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act bar the suit; the court took arguments under advisement.
The Appeals Court heard argument in Gary Sawyer v. Town of Barnstable (24P.861) over whether a stormwater best-management-practice (BMP) project negligently designed or maintained by a consultant and overseen by the town caused flooding on private property, and whether municipal immunities bar the claims.
Plaintiff counsel Anthony Panabianco said the BMP retrofit installed near Sawyer's property was acknowledged by design documents (an OEM and record appendix) to be undersized for certain storm conditions and that CEI's own materials warned of potential blockages and high peak volumes. Panabianco argued the absence of flooding for many years before the BMP was installed and the occurrence of substantial flooding after completion established a causal link a layperson and a jury could find without expert testimony. "They acknowledge in their own [documents] that there are space constraints ... that sediment could accumulate ... potentially impact storm water flow capacity," he told the panel.
CEI's counsel John Edwards and the town argued the plaintiff had not established the engineering standard-of-care or causation required to send a negligence/design claim to a jury, and that expert testimony is necessary to evaluate complex hydrologic modeling and design choices. The town also invoked statutory immunity under G. L. c. 258, § 10 (10J and 10B) — arguing the claim is for failure to prevent harm from rain and thus barred by the public-duty rule and discretionary-function immunity; counsel said the town had not taken ownership of the system at the time and that the court below correctly granted summary disposition.
The panel probed whether the plaintiff's reliance on the project's own OEM language raised factual issues for a jury and whether the single reported flood event in July 2017 (approx. 2.92 inches of rain over several hours) was enough to support causation without expert proof. The court took the arguments under advisement.
