## Facts

- Edward and Mrs. Butler owned a higher-elevation summer home lot in Narragansett, Rhode Island, which had historically remained dry.
- Joseph Bruno bought the adjacent, lower-elevation lot, described as swampy and functioning as a basin receiving runoff from surrounding areas.
- To build a house, Bruno placed about three feet of gravel fill across his lot and built a retaining wall along the Butlers’ boundary to hold the fill.
- Bruno did not install drainage for surface water that had previously flowed onto his lot from neighboring properties.
- After Bruno’s work, the Butlers experienced persistent flooding on their property, and their sewage system allegedly failed, causing sewage backup into the home.
- The Butlers sued, claiming Bruno’s alterations redirected surface water onto their land, causing damage.

## Issues

1. What rule governs liability in Rhode Island when a landowner alters surface-water drainage and harms an adjoining landowner: the common-enemy rule, the civil-law rule, or a reasonable-use rule?
2. Did the trial court apply the correct legal standard in entering judgment for Bruno?

## Decision

- The Rhode Island Supreme Court vacated the judgment for Bruno.
- The court rejected the trial court’s modified common-enemy approach as the governing doctrine.
- The court adopted the rule of reasonable use for surface-water disputes between adjoining landowners.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings and findings under the reasonable-use standard.

## Legal Principles

- Liability for interference with surface water is governed by a reasonable-use standard, not categorical immunity (common-enemy) or strict servitude (civil-law).
- Reasonableness is assessed case by case, considering factors such as:
  - the purpose and necessity of the landowner’s development or drainage measures,
  - the care taken to avoid unnecessary harm,
  - the balance between the utility of the conduct and the gravity of the harm, and
  - whether a reasonable natural or artificial drainage system was used.
- When a trial court applies an incorrect doctrinal test, the proper remedy may be remand for application of the correct standard rather than entry of judgment for either party.

## Conclusion

The court replaced rigid surface-water doctrines with a tort-based reasonable-use test and sent the case back for a fact-specific determination of whether Bruno’s development unreasonably redirected surface water and caused compensable harm to the Butlers.


Butler v. Bruno, 341 A.2d 735 (R.I. 1975)