O'Connell v. East Tenn., Va. & Ga. Railway Co.

Lumpkin, Justice.

The precise question in this ease is whether the owner of land on the hank of a river can without liability erect on his own land an embankment which increases the overflow in times of flood upon the lands of the opposite proprietor to the injury thereof; or. is *247there any duty for each owner to receive upon his land the share allotted it by nature of the flood waters of the river. It is contended by defendant’s' counsel that the overflow from a river in time of flood or freshet is surface water, against which, by the common law, a man may protect himself without regard to the…