Gates v. Blincoe

delivered the Opinion of the Court.,The plaintiff sued the defendants, in case, for diverting) the water from his mill, by cutting a ditch. They at- > tempted to justify, on the ground that the mill dam was i a nuisance, which they had a legal right to abate.,

On the trial, the court instructed the jury that — “ if the water occasioned [by the dam] was a nuisance, or had been a nuisance, and was like to become so again, the defendants had a right to cut a ditch, and draw off' the water,” and thereupon the jury found a verdict for the defendants, on which the court rendered a judgment in bar of…