## Facts

- William H. Noone and his wife owned an uphill residence on a hillside; Marion T. Price owned the adjoining downhill parcel.
- A stone-and-concrete retaining wall, built decades earlier entirely on Price’s property, ran along the hillside behind Price’s house near the property line.
- After purchasing their home, the Noones observed structural cracking and deterioration and concluded their house was sliding downhill.
- The Noones attributed the movement and damage to deterioration and collapse of Price’s retaining wall and asked Price to repair it.
- Price did not repair the wall; the Noones undertook repairs to their own house and later sought damages.
- The Noones sued alleging withdrawal of lateral support and negligent failure to provide lateral support, claiming the wall was intended to support the slope underlying their property.
- Price denied the wall provided lateral support to the Noones’ land or caused the damage and asserted defenses including the Noones’ own negligence and estoppel based on the wall’s origin with prior owners.

## Issues

1. Whether an adjoining landowner is strictly liable for subsidence of a neighbor’s land in its natural condition when lateral support is withdrawn through failure to maintain an artificial support (a retaining wall).
2. Whether strict-liability lateral-support principles can permit recovery for damage to structures when the damage results from a causal chain initiated by subsidence that would have occurred even if the land were in its natural condition.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper where disputes remained about causation and whether the land would have subsided absent the added weight of the structure.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed the partial summary judgment and remanded.
- The court reaffirmed the absolute right of lateral support for land in its natural state and strict liability for subsidence caused by withdrawal of that support.
- The court held the trial court erred by treating structures as categorically outside strict-lateral-support protection.
- The Noones were entitled to attempt to prove that (i) their land would have subsided in its natural condition due to the wall’s failure and (ii) the house damage followed as a consequence of that subsidence.
- Because material fact disputes existed on these points, summary judgment cutting off recovery for house damage was improper.

## Legal Principles

- A landowner has an absolute right to lateral support from adjoining soil for the land in its natural condition; withdrawal causing subsidence supports strict liability.
- Strict liability does not extend to subsidence attributable only to the added weight of buildings or other improvements; in that circumstance, recovery generally requires proof of negligence.
- When withdrawal of lateral support causes subsidence that would have occurred even with the land in its natural state, damages may include harm to structures that occurs as a consequence of that subsidence.
- In lateral-support cases involving improvements, liability turns on whether the land would have subsided absent the improvement and whether the improvement damage is consequential to that subsidence.
- Summary judgment is inappropriate where disputes remain regarding causation, the condition and function of an artificial support, and whether natural-land subsidence would have occurred without the structure’s added load.

## Conclusion

The court held that strict-lateral-support doctrine protects land in its natural condition and can permit recovery for structure damage when that damage results from subsidence that would have occurred even without the structure; factual disputes on those points required reversal of partial summary judgment and remand.


Noone v. Price, 171 W. Va. 185, 298 S.E.2d 218 (W. Va. 1982)