Grace & Co. v. City of Los Angeles

A city-owned water pipeline, installed 40 years earlier using the best available pipe at the time and never inspected or maintained since, burst and flooded a harbor storage shed, damaging Grace & Co.'s (plaintiff) stored coffee; the city knew the harbor's soil was highly corrosive to cast-iron pipe but maintained a policy of only repairing or replacing such pipes once they actually failed, rather than proactively inspecting them. Grace & Co. sued the city (defendant) for negligence.