Claims Regarding Duty to Provide Safe Drinking Water Flow Through Summary Judgment Motion

In the case of McNair v. Pennsylvania-America Water Co., No. 2024-CV-5834 (C.P. Lacka. Co. June 11, 2026 Nealon, J.), Judge Terrence R. Nealon of the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas addressed a Motion for Summary Judgment filed by a water company in a class action suit by residents of a Monroe County lake community in which the Plaintiffs had asserted claims of public nuisance under the safe drinking water statute, private nuisance, and breach of implied contract for failing to provide clean, safe, and reliable water surface to their company.

According to the Opinion, the Plaintiffs asserted that the drinking water supplied by the utility company was chronically tainted with excessive levels of manganese that adversely affected the color, case, smell, and safety of the water.

The utility company filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on several grounds.

Relative to the request for the dismissal of certain nuisance claims based upon the statute of limitations, the court ruled that there were issues of fact under the discovery rule to the statute of limitations that prevented the entry of summary judgment in that regard.

Judge Terrence R. Nealon
Lackawanna County

Judge Nealon also found that the record before the court confirmed that the Plaintiff’s claims for breach of the utility’s implied duty to provide safe drinking water should be allowed to proceed to the jury.

Relative to the utility’s argument that the Plaintiff’s claims failed due to the Plaintiff’s failure to exhaust their administrative remedies, the court found that the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies only applies where the available administrative remedy is adequate and complete with respect to the alleged harm sustained and the specific relief requested. 

Here, the court found that, given that the resident’s public nuisance claims sought to recover compensatory and punitive damages for the diminution of the value of their property, the loss of the use and enjoyment of the land, and the inconvenience, discomfort and annoyance that they have endured, the circumstances did not meet the elements of the doctrine given that the appropriate state administrative agency had no authority to award damages. 

As such, the court found that residents were not required to first exhaust their available administrative procedures before filing suit in a court of law.

In the end, the court denied the utility’s Motion for Summary Judgment.

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Law of Nuisance Applied to Noisy Rooster

Thank God there are lawyers to settle important disputes.

In the case of Batchelor v. Schwartz, No. 2018-08910-IR (C.P. Chester Co. June 15, 2020 Tunnell, J.), the court ruled that the crowing of a Defendant’s rooster caused significant harm to a person of normal sensibility such that the Plaintiffs were granted a judgment in their favor on a nuisance claim.

According to the Opinion, the Plaintiffs and the Defendant lived near each other in a residential neighborhood. The Defendant had a backyard farm that included chickens, a rooster, and other farm animals.

The Plaintiffs filed this nuisance claim, asserting that the Defendant’s rooster made loud, repetitive noises which kept the Plaintiffs, their family members, and guest awake at night. One of the Plaintiffs had even sought help for sleep disorders.

The court reaffirmed Pennsylvania law on nuisance claims. A nuisance can be found under Pennsylvania law where a personal engages in an unreasonable use of property which results in some type of injury to another person’s legitimate enjoyment of their own property. The test is whether or not the Defendant’s activity caused significant harm to a person of normal or reasonable sensibilities.

The court found that the prolonged situation involved in this case was significantly harmful and constituted an unlawful invasion of the Plaintiff’s right to enjoy their property.

The court’s decision was based, in part, on medical evidence presented relating to one of the Plaintiffs, testimony regarding sleep disturbances to others due to the rooster, and the court’s own review of audio evidence of the noise caused by the rooster’s crowing which was noted to be quite loud even inside the Plaintiffs’ home.

In ruling for the Plaintiffs, the court ordered the Defendant to abate the nuisance by placing the rooster in a barn overnight.

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Source: “Digest of Recent Opinions.” Pennsylvania Law Weekly (Jan. 5, 2021).

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Encroachment By Trees Determined to Be a Continuing Trespass for Statute of Limitations Purposes

In the case of Long v. Reccek, No. 3458 EDA 2019 (Pa. Super. Nov. 25, 2020 McLaughlin, J., Pannella, J., McCaffery, J.) (Op. by McLaughlin, J.), the Superior Court reversed the entry of summary judgment in a trespass/nuisance case involving a neighborly dispute regarding overhanging trees. 

The appellate court ruled that the alleged encroachment upon the Plaintiff’s property by trees growing on the Defendant’s property constituted a continuing trespass and nuisance such that the statute of limitations had not yet run on the Plaintiff’s claim.

The court noted that, under Pennsylvania law, whether a trespass or a nuisance is permanent or continuing involves an analysis of the character or what produced the injury, whether the consequences will continue indefinitely, and whether past and future damages may be reliably ascertained.

The court noted that the trespass/nuisance in the form of overhanging trees is a continuing wrong given that trees would obviously continue to grow such that any encroachments are bound to continue to occur.

As noted, the appellate court reversed the trial court’s entry of summary judgment.


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