The Michigan Court of Appeals slashed damages awarded to homeowner Sherilyn Hart to $102,000 on Thursday, upholding a neighbouring commercial firm's liability for channeling destructive stormwater runoff onto her residential lot.
A circuit court previously pegged the payout at $170,000 after a four-day bench trial. But appellate judges adjusted the math, stripping miscalculated repair costs while affirming that North Waverly LLC breached common law by dumping concentrated rainwater directly into Hart's foundation. The liability stood. The payout shrank.
Hart and her husband, Anthony McCarty, bought the residential property in 2013 to renovate and rent out, living in their primary home right next door. Two years later, North Waverly LLC acquired the commercial parcel immediately south of the parcel. Trouble brewed quickly. Prior to May 2016, water had never pooled on the lot. That changed abruptly when the commercial outfit revamped its drainage network, hooking roof downspouts to two long, uncapped plastic conduits. One pipe pointed straight at Hart's lawn. The second dumped torrents subterraneanly along the mutual property line.
Stevenson promised a temporary fix. It was anything but.
Winter and spring deluges saturated the yard, inundating the garage and submerging the home's eastern basement perimeter. The masonry buckled under hydraulic pressure. The eastern basement wall bowed inward and slipped clear off its sill, forcing contractors to jack up the entire house in 2021 to pour a replacement foundation. Water ruined a new furnace, an air conditioner, and a gas water heater. McCarty burned through five separate sump-pump motors between 2016 and 2023 trying to pump out the basement. Insurance adjusters refused to pay a dime.
McCarty confronted North Waverly managing member Eric Stevenson, then pleaded with township, county, and federal environmental officials. When red tape stalled, he brought in heavy machinery himself. In 2018, McCarty rented an excavator, dug a perimeter trench, graded the dirt, and laid an upsized commercial pump line. In June 2020, he physically capped North Waverly's discharge lines, leaving them blocked for 11 months while the soil slowly dried out. Once uncovered, McCarty engineered an overhead PVC line that pumped the floodwater back over a retaining wall onto North Waverly's commercial parking lot.
Parking lot water flowed into storm drains. The ground dried within seven days.
Yet municipal code officers stepped in. Township officials slapped the couple with a violation notice, forcing them to dismantle their reverse-pumping rig in December 2021. Township inspectors simultaneously cited North Waverly over a crumbling retaining wall and concentrated water discharge. The commercial owner eventually buried the outlets in gravel and shifted the discharge points four feet south into a dedicated stone drainage bed in 2023, finally halting the deluge.
| Legal and Financial Case Parameter | Official Circuit & Appellate Finding |
|---|---|
| Defendant Entity | North Waverly LLC |
| Plaintiff Property Owner | Sherilyn Hart |
| Original Pre-Correction Award | $170,000 |
| Final Revised Appellate Judgment | $102,000 |
| Established Causes of Action | Trespass and Private Nuisance |
The appellate ruling cements the trial court's verdict that commercial developments cannot turn adjoining private property into a stormwater catch-basin. With appellate review finalized, the modified $102,000 award moves forward for civil enforcement against North Waverly LLC.