Bartlett v. Hume-Sinclair Coal Mining Company

CROSS, Judge.

Plaintiff landowners sue defendant coal mining company for damages allegedly resulting from pollution of streams running through their farm lands caused by defendant’s mining operations. Defendant appeals from a jury verdict and judgment in favor of plaintiffs in the amount of $1,600.

The allegations of the petition are, in substance, as follows: Plaintiffs, husband and wife, owned a 299 acre farm in Bates County. Two natural streams flowed through the farm, one bearing the name “Walnut Creek”, the other designated only as the “east branch”. Prior to 1951 those streams afforded a…