## Facts

- Sylvester Ploof was sailing a loaded sloop on Lake Champlain with his wife and two minor children when a sudden, violent storm arose.
- To avoid destruction and injury, Ploof moored the sloop to a dock on an island owned by Henry W. Putnam.
- Putnam’s servant, who had charge of the premises, unmoored the sloop during the storm.
- The sloop was driven ashore by the tempest and destroyed; Ploof and his family were thrown into the lake and onto the shore and were injured.
- Ploof sued in two counts: (1) trespass alleging the servant willfully cast off the moorings; and (2) case alleging the servant negligently and wrongfully did so.
- Putnam filed general demurrers challenging the legal sufficiency of each count.

## Issues

1. Whether allegations that a storm compelled plaintiff to moor at defendant’s dock to avoid destruction sufficiently plead a necessity privilege that would otherwise excuse trespass.
2. Whether, if necessity justified mooring, the dock owner (through a servant) owed a duty not to unmoor and expel the vessel while the necessity continued.
3. Whether the declaration sufficiently alleged that the servant acted as defendant’s agent within the scope of employment to attribute liability to the owner.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the order overruling the demurrers and remanded the cause.
- The court held that necessity may justify entries on land and interferences with property that would otherwise be trespasses, especially where human life is endangered.
- Accepting the pleadings as true, the alleged necessity was sufficient without pleading detailed circumstances; those were matters of proof.
- The pleadings adequately alleged a correlative duty to allow the sloop to remain moored during the storm and that unmooring it could be wrongful.
- The agency allegations were sufficient at the pleading stage to treat the servant’s conduct as attributable to Putnam.

## Legal Principles

- Private necessity can privilege temporary entry upon another’s land and limited use of another’s property to avoid imminent serious harm, including threats to human life.
- When necessity justifies the entrant’s presence, the property owner may have a duty not to actively interfere by expelling the entrant while the emergency persists.
- On a general demurrer, necessity and duty may be pleaded in general terms; detailed supporting circumstances are issues for evidence, not pleading.
- A landowner may be liable under respondeat superior for a servant’s wrongful acts committed within the scope of the servant’s charge over the premises.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that private necessity, if proven, can justify mooring to another’s dock during a violent storm and can impose on the landowner a duty not to unmoor and expel the vessel while the peril continues; the pleadings also sufficiently tied the servant’s conduct to the owner for potential liability.


Ploof v. Putnam, 81 Vt. 471, 71 A. 188 (Vt. 1908)