Preston v. Clark

I am at variance with the opinion of Mr. Justice BIRD. The mill of plaintiff Preston is five miles distant, by the stream, from the little dam erected by defendants on their own property, and the pond at Preston's mill backs water only about three-quarters of a mile. The mill of plaintiff Foltz is below Preston's. No prescriptive right of any kind obtains in this case. Defendants, by nonuser of their riparian right to erect a dam lost nothing to plaintiffs. The prescriptive right involved in Stock v. City of Hillsdale, 155 Mich. 375, was that of an upper proprietor to divert water from the…