## Facts

- Perini Corp., as a contractor for New York City, performed dynamite blasting to construct an underground tunnel in Brooklyn.
- Perini detonated 194 sticks of dynamite approximately 125 feet from Ann Spano’s garage.
- A blast on November 27, 1962 damaged Spano’s garage and an automobile owned by Robert G. Davis that was inside the garage for repairs.
- The damage was attributed to concussion/vibration effects rather than debris or rocks entering the plaintiffs’ property.
- Plaintiffs presented no proof of negligence; there was no physical trespass.
- The trial court awarded damages of $4,400 to Spano and $329 to Davis.

## Issues

1. Whether a blaster is strictly (absolutely) liable for damage to neighboring property caused by blasting vibrations or shock waves, absent negligence and absent physical trespass.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals held that blasting gives rise to liability without fault for injury to neighboring property caused by the blasting.
- The court rejected a rule requiring negligence proof when there is no physical invasion of the plaintiff’s land.
- The court reversed the intermediate appellate courts’ rulings that had required negligence.
- The court remitted the case to the Appellate Division to consider whether the evidence sufficiently established causation between the blasting and the claimed damage.

## Legal Principles

- A party who engages in blasting is liable without fault for harm proximately caused to neighboring property.
- Blasting is treated as an abnormally dangerous activity: it creates a high risk of serious harm that cannot be eliminated by reasonable care and is not a matter of common usage.
- Strict liability for blasting does not depend on whether the harm results from flying debris (physical invasion) or from concussion/vibration effects; the distinction is legally irrelevant.
- The policy basis for strict liability is loss allocation: the entity that intentionally undertakes a highly dangerous activity should bear resulting losses as a cost of the activity rather than shifting them to innocent neighbors.
- Even under strict liability, plaintiffs must still prove factual causation between the blasting and the particular damage claimed.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals adopted strict liability for blasting-related damage to neighboring property, eliminating any requirement to prove negligence or physical trespass, and remitted for further review of whether the evidence established that the defendant’s blasting caused the plaintiffs’ damage.


Spano v. Perini Corp., 25 N.Y.2d 11 (N.Y. 1969)