# Laform v. Bethlehem Township

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · October 18, 1985 · 346 Pa. Super. 512

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9750506

## Case

- **Full name:** Mary LAFORM and Mary Kolleogy, Administratrices of the Estate of Debbie Laform v. BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, and Brown-Borhek Company, and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, and City of Bethlehem. Appeal of CITY OF BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania League of Cities
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** October 18, 1985
- **Citations:** 346 Pa. Super. 512; 499 A.2d 1373; 1985 Pa. Super. LEXIS 9684
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by McEWEN
- **Judges:** Spaeth, Cavanaugh, Wie-And, McEwen, Cirillo, Sole, Johnson, Popovich, Cercone
- **Cited by:** 26 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9750506

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that because increase of surface water caused by development of a rural hillside was predictable and preventable, it constituted an “artificial” land use, and developer accordingly had an affirmative duty to provide adequate drainage
- holding that since "this is not a case of artificial diversion of surface waters ... we need only consider whether the City caused an unreasonable or unnecessary increase in the water flowing through its drainage swale"
- discussing the evolution of a higher legal standard for developers in rural areas

## Opinion text

McEWEN, Judge,
dissenting:
While my distinguished colleagues of the majority have expressed with clarity a very thoughtful rationale of position, there is no question in my mind but that the jury should have been permitted to find that the City of Bethlehem had a duty to the decedent. As a result, I am, very respectfully, compelled to dissent and to reecho the view expressed by our learned President Judge Edmund B. Spaeth, Jr. that:
... the jury could properly find that the city had a duty of reasonable care for the safety of travelers at the intersection; that in the exercise of that duty the city should have foreseen that when the intersection was flooded, a traveler might drown; that in failing to do *549 anything to alleviate that danger, the city failed to fulfill its duty; and that its failure caused appellee’s death.
DEL SOLE, J., joins.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9750506. Public record. Not legal advice.