Watson v. Inhabitants of Needham
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Contract, to recover damages for injury to the plaintiff’s growing crop of lettuce, situated in his greenhouse, caused by freezing.
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Contract, to recover damages for injury to the plaintiff’s growing crop of lettuce, situated in his greenhouse, caused by freezing. At the trial in the Superior Court, without a jury, before Blodgett, J., there was evidence tending to show that the water supply of the defendant town was located within- the town, and a standpipe was established to furnish the necessary pressure, and the water was raised from the source of the supply, which was about a mile from the village, by pumping, for the purpose of filling the standpipe, and causing the water to circulate through the system of pipes;…
1Opinion of the CourtKnowlton, J.
The defendant town, acting through its water commissioners, undertook to furnish the plaintiff with water for use in a boiler to make steam to heat his greenhouse. It is objected that this is a use for which the town had no constitutional authority to take and furnish water, and that the contract was therefore void.
It is true that the right of eminent domain cannot be exercised to take property for a private use, and persons or corporations owning rights in streams or ponds cannot be deprived of their use of the water by an attempt to take it for the use of another merely for purposes of…
2Cases cited5 opinions
- Hand v. Inhabitants of BrooklineMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1879
- Neff v. Inhabitants of WellesleyMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1889
- Opinion of the Justices to the House of RepresentativesMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1890
- Stock v. City of BostonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1889
- Merrimack River Savings Bank v. City of LowellMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1891
3Cited by10 opinions
- City of Trenton v. New JerseySupreme Court of the United States · 1923
- C. W. Hunt Co. v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1908
- Town of Ukiah City v. Ukiah Water & Improvement Co.California Supreme Court · 1904
- Pearl v. Inhabitants of RevereMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1914
- City of Huntingburg v. MorgenIndiana Court of Appeals · 1928
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