A Treatise on Rights of Water: Including Public and Private Rights to the Sea and Sea-shore, Page 537 |
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Common terms and phrases
action actual adjoining artificial Att.-Gen Baron Alderson Baron Pollock belong benefit Bing Blundell Canal circumstances cited claim Common Law course Court Court of Exchequer Crown damage defendant dicta divert dye water easement East effect enjoyed enjoyment entitled erected evidence exclusive exercise facie fact fishery flow of water Grand Junction Canal grant ground immemorial injury judgment Jure Maris Justice L. J. Ex landowners Leonards Lord licence limit Lord Ellenborough Lord Tenterden Macq Mason medium filum ment mill Minsterley Murcot N. S. Ex natural rights natural stream navigable rivers neighbour nuisance obliged occupier original owner of land ownership party passes person perty plaintiff plea possession prescription presumption prietors public rights publici juris purpose question reason respect rights of fishing riparian riparian proprietors Roman law Saund servient Shep shore soil statute sunt surface thority tides tion trespass usufruct Waud weir Wend
Popular passages
Page 24 - Every proprietor of lands on the banks of a river has naturally an equal right to the use of the water which flows in the stream adjacent to his lands, as it was wont to run ('currere solebat'), without diminution or alteration. No proprietor has a right to use the water, to the prejudice of other proprietors, above or below him, unless he has a prior right to divert it, or a title to some exclusive enjoyment. He has no property in the water itself, but a simple usufruct while it passes along. 'Aqua...
Page 19 - For water is a movable, wandering thing, and must of necessity continue common by the law of nature; so that I can only have a temporary, transient, usufructuary, property therein...
Page 24 - ... it is a right only to the flow of the water, and the enjoyment of it, subject to the similar rights of all the proprietors of the banks on each side to the reasonable enjoyment of the same gift of Providence.
Page 25 - Streams of water are intended for the use and comfort of man ; and it would be unreasonable and contrary to the universal sense of mankind to debar every riparian proprietor from the application of the water to domestic, agricultural and manufacturing purposes...
Page 72 - It was held by all the court, upon demurrer, that, if one erect a house, and build a conduit thereto, in another part of his land, and convey water by pipes to the house, and afterwards sell the house with the appurtenances, excepting the land, or sell the land to another, reserving to himself the house...
Page 32 - In delivering the judgment of the Court of Exchequer in the subsequent case of Broadbent v. Eamsbotham (11 Exch. Rep. 602, 615), Baron Alderson observes, that " all the water falling from heaven, and shed upon the surface of a hill, at the foot of which a brook runs, must, by the natural force of gravity find its way to the bottom, and so into the brook ; but this does not prevent the owner of the land on which it falls from dealing with it as he may please, and appropriating it.
Page 35 - ... that the person who owns the surface may dig therein, and apply all that is there found to his own purposes at his free will and pleasure; and that if, in the exercise of such right, he intercepts or drains off the water collected from underground springs in his neighbour's well, this inconvenience to his neighbour falls within the description of damnum absque injuria, which cannot become the ground of an action.
Page 25 - ... cannot unreasonably detain it, or give it another direction, and he must return it to its ordinary channel when it leaves his estate. Without the consent of the adjoining proprietors, he cannot divert or diminish the quantity of water which would otherwise descend to the proprietors below, nor throw the water back upon the proprietors above, without a grant, or an uninterrupted enjoyment of twenty years, which is evidence of it.
Page 18 - flowing water is originally publici juris. So soon as it is appropriated by an individual, his right is co-extensive with the beneficial use to which he appropriates it. Subject to that right, all the rest of the water remains publici juris. The party who obtains a right to the exclusive enjoyment of the water, does so in derogation of the primitwe right of the public.
Page 95 - ... but, on the other hand, the general proposition, that, under all circumstances, the right to watercourses, arising from enjoyment, is the same whether they be natural or artificial, cannot possibly be sustained. The right to artificial watercourses, as against the party creating them, surely must depend upon the character of the watercourse, whether it be of a permanent or temporary nature, and upon the circumstances under which it is created.