David Springer v. Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge:

This North Carolina diversity case raises the question of the liability of an industry to downstream riparian owners when its wastes overload a city’s treatment facilities and cause water pollution. The plaintiffs, David and Diana Springer, own an interest in a large farm on the Yadkin River. Seeking an injunction and compensatory and punitive damages, they contend that, beginning in late 1969, wastes from a new brewery owned by Joseph B. Schlitz Brewing Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, overloaded the city’s sewage treatment plant, causing it to pollute the…