Pernell v. City of Henderson

The plaintiff has for some time owned and operated a grist mill on a stream known as Sandy Creek, near Henderson, a city of some 7,600 inhabitants. The city has constructed and maintains dams and reservoirs on the tributaries of this stream above the mill site, from which it pumps a supply of water through mains to the city and distributes it to the inhabitants and users through a water system in the usual way. The plaintiff claims that this diversion of the water from the natural flow of the stream has so diminished it that the value of his mill site has been destroyed or greatly reduced,…