Tampa Waterworks Co. v. Cline

37 Fla. 586
Supreme Court of Florida·Decided January 15, 1896·Published·Cited by 22 cases

Opinion

Mabry, C. J.:

The questions arising on the present record involve rights of adjoining land owners to water passing through the land not heretofore discussed by this court. The general subject to rights to water passing over or through lands requires some classification in dealing with the different phrases of rights that may arise. A very well considered case decided in Ohio, and hereafter referred to, classifies the subject as follows: 1. In respect to surface streams which flow in a permanent, distinct and well-defined channel from the lands of one owner to those of another. 2. In respect to surface water—however originating—which, without any distinct or well-defined channel, by attraction, gravitation or otherwise, are shed and pass [594] from the lands of one proprietor to those of another. 3. Subterranean streams which flow in a permanent, distinct and well-defined channel from the lands of one to those of another proprietor. 4. Subsurface water which, without any permanent, distinct or definite channel, percolate in veins or filter from the lands of onft owner to the lands of another.

The rights asserted by appellant in the bill filed appertain to the water of a natural spring alleged to be supplied by a well-marked and defined subterranean stream flowing some twelve or fifteen feet below the surface across the lands of appellant and appellee, and-the case does not call for a discussion of, and what is said has no application to, mere surface water without any distinct and well-defined channel, and which is shed and passes from the land of one owner to that of another. In the Ohio case mentioned (Frazier vs. Brown, 12 Ohio St. 294), in speaking of flowing surface water in well-defined channels, it is said “that notwithstanding the maxim which affirms the absolute and unlimited dominion of the proprietor of the soil upward and downward, the proprietor below has, in the absence of any' modification of relative rights by contract or prescription, no right to throw the water back on him above, and has the right to receive it from the proprietor above substantially undiminished in quantity and uncorrupted in quality; and this right arises, not from any supposed grant or from prescription, but ex jure naturas, and for the reason, that surface streams of flowing water are the gift of Providence, for the benefit of all lands through which they flow, and as such their usufruct is appurtenant to the lands through which they flow.” This [595] statement contains tlie doctrine of the English common law as clearly announced in adjudications in that country. In the English case of Embrey vs. Owen, 15 Jurist 633, it is stated that “the right to have the stream to flow in its natural state without diminution or alteration is an incident to the property in the land through which it passes, but flowing water is publici juris, not in the sgnse that it is a bonum vacans to which the first occupant may acquire an exclusive right, but that it is public and common in this sense only, that all may reasonably use it who have a right of access to it, that none can have any property in the water itself, except in the particular portion which he may choose to abstract from the stream and take into his possession, and that during the time of his possession only. But each proprietor of the adjacent land has the right to the usufruct of the stream which flows through it.”' Sustaining this view are the following .authorities: Wright vs. Howard, 1 Sim. & S. 190; Mason vs. Hill, 5 B. & Ad. 1; Wood vs. Waud, 3 Exch. 748; Dickinson vs. Grand Junction Canal Co., 9 Eng. Law & Eq. 513; Chasemore vs. Richards, 7 H. L. Cases, 349; Tyler vs. Wilkinson, 4 Mason 397; 3 Kents Com. 439; Gould on Waters, sec. 204. The American adjudications to the same effect are numerous. The right to the benefit and advantage of the water flowing past one owner’s land is subject to the similar rights of all the proprietors on the banks of the stream to the reasonable enjoyment of a natural bounty, and it is therefore only for an unauthorized ■and unreasonable use of a common benefit that any one has just cause to complain. Judge Story says, in Tyler vs. Wilkinson, supra: “The natural streams, [596] existing by the bounty of Province for the benefit of the land through which it flows, is an incident annexed, by operation of law, to the land itself. When I speak of this common right, I do not mean to be understood as holding the doctrine that there can be no diminution whatever, and no obstruction or impediment whatever, by a riparian proprietor, in the use of the water as it flows; for that would be to deny any valuable use of it. There may be, and there must be allowed of' that, which is common to all, a reasonable use. The true test of the principle and extent of the use is, whether it is to the injury of the other proprietors or not. There may be a diminution in quantity, or a retardation or acceleration of the natural current indispensable for. the general and valuable use of the-water, perfectly consistent with the existence of the-common right. The diminution, retardation, or acceleration, not • positively and sensibly injurious by diminishing the value of the common right, is an implied element in the right of using the stream at all. The law here, as in many other cases, acts with a reasonable reference to public convenience and general, good, and it is not betrayed with a narrow strictness, subversive of common sense, nor into an extravagant looseness, which would destroy private rights. The-maxim is applied, sic utere tuo ut non alienumlaedas.”

As to the riparian rights to the ordinary use of water flowing past land, it extends to the supplying of natural wants, including the use of the water for domestic purposes of home or farm, such as drinking, washing, cooking or for stock of the proprietor, and, many authorities state that if necessary for the pur[597] poses mentioned, all the water of the stream may be consumed. Evans vs. Merriweather, 3 Scam. 492, S. C. 38 Am. Dec. 106; Wadsworth vs. Tillotson, 15 Conn. 366, S. C. 39 Am. Dec. 391; Anderson vs. Cincinnati Southern Ry. Co., 86 Ky. 44, 5 S. W. Rep. 49; S. C. 9 Am. St. Rep. 263; Acquackanonk Water Co. vs. Watson, 29 N. J. Eq. 366; Dumont vs. Kellogg, 29 Mich. 420, S. C. 18 Am. Rep. 102; Gould on Waters, sec. 205. There are other uses than those mentioned to which, according to many authorities, flowing water in well-defined and distinct channels may be applied, but the disposition of the present case does not require a further statement as to the rights of adjoining proprietors to running surface water in well-defined channels over their lands.

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Tampa Waterworks Co. v. Cline, 37 Fla. 586 (Fla. 1896).

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