## Facts

- In 1968, Richard and Judith Woodsum bought a home in Pemberton Township, New Jersey, supplied by a private residential well drawing from the Wenonah–Mt. Laurel aquifer.
- In 1972, Pemberton Township developed a municipal water system, including a water plant and wells drawing from the same aquifer to supply water for public consumption; the project was state-approved and financed with municipal bonds.
- For purposes of summary judgment, the court accepted plaintiffs’ contention that operation of the Township’s wells lowered the water table enough to deprive plaintiffs’ well of water.
- The parties agreed that plaintiffs could restore water to their home by deepening their well at a cost estimated between $750 and $1,700 (depending on equipment conditions), but plaintiffs did not do so because they lacked funds and could not borrow the money.
- Plaintiffs vacated the home and rented elsewhere; while vacant, the property suffered vandalism and substantial damage despite plaintiffs’ efforts to check on it.
- Plaintiffs sued the Township and related governmental defendants (including the municipal utilities authority and others connected to the project), seeking damages primarily on an inverse-condemnation theory (an unconstitutional taking) and also asserting tort-based theories tied to the water loss and subsequent property damage.
- Defendants moved for summary judgment based on the legal limits of groundwater rights, the absence of a compensable taking, and statutory protections applicable to public entities and officials.

## Issues

1. Whether a municipality’s pumping of groundwater for a public water supply that dries a homeowner’s private well constitutes a compensable taking/inverse condemnation under federal or New Jersey constitutional protections.
2. Whether plaintiffs may recover tort damages against the Township and related governmental defendants for the water loss and ensuing property damage, given statutory immunities and principles of causation and mitigation.

## Decision

- Summary judgment was granted to the Township and other governmental defendants.
- The court held that, under New Jersey groundwater law, plaintiffs did not suffer a compensable taking where the interference with their well was remediable by deepening the well at relatively modest cost and therefore did not amount to a material deprivation of their protected right of use.
- The court rejected plaintiffs’ tort-based claims, relying on governmental immunity principles and on the view that major claimed damages tied to abandonment and vandalism were not recoverable on this record, particularly in light of plaintiffs’ failure to restore water service through the available remedy.

## Legal Principles

- Rights in percolating groundwater in New Jersey are usufructuary: an overlying landowner generally has a right to make reasonable use of the common supply, not ownership of the water itself.
- Competing users of a shared aquifer are governed by a reasonableness/correlative-rights approach that weighs one user’s use against the rights of others drawing from the same source.
- Municipal withdrawal of groundwater to supply a public water system is a lawful and proper use; it does not create takings liability unless the withdrawal causes a material, legally actionable impairment of another’s reasonable use.
- A taking/inverse-condemnation claim requires more than consequential harm from a public project; where the loss of service is readily correctable at modest cost, the interference may be treated as noncompensable.
- Plaintiffs seeking damages must address mitigation and causation: when a practical fix is available, later losses tied to leaving property vacant may be deemed too remote to charge to the public entity.
- Statutory protections for public entities and officials can bar or limit tort recovery arising from the planning, approval, construction, and operation of public improvements, absent a specific basis for liability.

## Conclusion

The Law Division entered summary judgment for Pemberton Township and the other governmental defendants, concluding that the Township’s groundwater pumping for a public water supply did not amount to a compensable taking because plaintiffs’ loss of water was remediable by deepening their well and thus did not constitute a material deprivation of their protected use, and further concluding that plaintiffs’ tort theories did not support recovery on these facts given immunity and the limits of causation and mitigation.


Woodsum v. Pemberton Township, 412 A.2d 1064 (1980)