ROBLES NOTES

SECTION 9

Lateral and Subjacent Support (n)

Article 684. No proprietor shall make such excavations upon his land as to deprive any
adjacent land or building of sufficient lateral or subjacent support.

Article 685. Any stipulation or testamentary provision allowing excavations that cause danger
to an adjacent land or building shall be void.

Article 686. The legal easement of lateral and subjacent support is not only for buildings
standing at the time the excavations are made but also for constructions that may be erected.

Article 687. Any proprietor intending to make any excavation contemplated in the three
preceding articles shall notify all owners of adjacent lands.

LATERAL SUPPORT

 The right of having one’s land and the structure erected thereon supported by the land of a
neighboring proprietor
 Each of two adjoining land-owners is entitled to the support of the other’s land. The right of
lateral support exists only with respect to the soil in its natural condition; and it is an incident to
the land in that condition.
 If any excavation causes damage whilst the soil remains in this condition, an action will lie, but in
the absence of negligence in excavating, or prescription, or grant, in favor of the neighbor, no
action will lie for injury occasioned to the latter if he has the lateral pressure by building on the
land.
 A land-owner has a right to assume that the soil will be permitted to remain in its natural state,
and for a violation of this right, an action will lie independently of the question of negligence.
 A person’s right to the support of the land immediately around his house is not much an
easement, as it has been called, as it is the ordinary right of enjoyment of property.
 This right of a land-owner to support his land against that of the adjacent owner does not extend
to the support of any additional weight or structure that he may place thereon. If, therefore, a man
erect a house upon his own land, so near the boundary line thereof as to be injured by the owner’s
excavating his land in a proper manner, and so as not to have caused the soil of the adjacent
parcel to fall if it had not been loaded with an additional weight, it would be “damnum absque
injuria”, a loss for which the person so excavating would not be responsible in damages.
 The unquestionable right of a land-owner to remove the earth from his own premises adjacent to
another’s building is subject to the qualification that he shall use ordinary care to cause no
unnecessary damage to his neighbor’s property is so doing. In exercising his rights his land, the
 owner is bound to use ordinary care and skill for the purpose of avoiding injury to his neighbor.
Thus, while, as a general rule, he is not bound to continue the support his land gives to a structure
upon, or other artificial arrangement of, adjoining land, and is, therefore, not liable for the natural
consequences of his withdrawing this support, yet in doing so, he must act with such case and
caution that ( as nearly as by reasonable exertion it is possible to secure such a result) his
neighbor shall suffer no more injury than would have accrued if the structure had been put where
it is without ever having had the support of his land.
 If a man in the exercise of his own rights of property do damage to his neighbor, he is liable if it
might have been avoided by the use of reasonable care.
 It has been held that prior notice to the neighbor whose property may be endangered by the
excavation is an essential part of the ordinary care referred to.
 One who digs away land which affords support to an adjoining house ought to give the owner
reasonable notice of his intention to do so, and he must allow the latter all reasonable facilities for
obtaining artificial support, including a temporary privilege of shoring up the house by supports
based upon the former owner’s land.
 One who proposes to excavate, or make other attractions or improvements upon his own land,
which may endanger the land or house of his neighbor, is bound to give the latter reasonable
notice of what he proposes to do, to enable him to take the necessary measures for the
preservation of his own property. But, after giving such notice, he is bound only to reasonable
and ordinary care in the prosecution of the work. In many cases, it is held that after notice from
the owner who proposes to excavate, it is the duty of his neighbor to shore up his own building.
 The owner of the land cannot be deprived of his right to excavate his own land by the action of
his neighbor in building at or was the boundary line, and if he conduct his operations with due
care, and no right by grant or prescription has been acquired by his neighbor, he is not liable,
even though the building of the latter be ruined.
 In the case of a party wall the joint owners of it have no easement of reciprocal support from each
other’s buildings, and if one proposes to remove the building, and injury to his neighbor is liable
to result from it, he must notify him of his intention that he may look to his own protection, at the
same time using reasonable care and precaution to protect his neighbor, and if this is done, and
still injury results, no action will lie.
 The action for a wrong is not for the excavation; the land owner does not sustain damages until
there is an actual subsistence for his soil.
 The measure of damages in actions for removing the lateral support of another’s land is the
amount required to restore the property to its former condition with as good means of lateral
support, and special damages must be specially pleaded; or the diminution of the value of the land
by falling, carving, or washing, as the natural result of the excavation.
 The doctrine of lateral support has been stated. This right exists independently of grant or
prescription, and is also an absolute right; so that, if his neighbor excavates the adjoin land, and in
consequence A’s land falls, he may have an action, although A’s excavation was not carelessly or
unskilfully performed. This natural right does not extend to any buildings A may place upon his
land; and therefore, if A builds his house upon the verge of his own land, he does not thereby
acquire the right to have it derive its support from the land adjoin it until it shall have stood and
had the advantages of such support for 20 years. In the meantime such adjacent owner may
excavate his own land for such purposes as he sees fit, provided he does not dig carelessly or
 recklessly; and if, in so doing, the adjacent earth gives way, and the house falls by reason of the
additional weight thereby placed upon the natural spoil, the owner of the house is without
remedy. It was his own folly to place it there. But if it shall have stood for 20 years with the
knowledge of the adjacent proprietor, it acquires the easement of a support in the adjacent soil.
 Read: Graves vs. Mattison, 32 Atl. 498