Mills v. Hall
New York Supreme Court
This was an action on the case, tried at the Essex circuit, in June, 1830, before the Hon. Esek Cowen, one of the circuit judges. The action was for a nuisance created by the erection and maintenance of a dam across the outlet of Lake Paradox, corrupting the atmosphere and affecting the health of the plaintiff and his family.
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This was an action on the case, tried at the Essex circuit, in June, 1830, before the Hon. Esek Cowen, one of the circuit judges. The action was for a nuisance created by the erection and maintenance of a dam across the outlet of Lake Paradox, corrupting the atmosphere and affecting the health of the plaintiff and his family. In 1825 or 1826, the defendants, or one of them, rebuilt the dam in question, on a spot where there had been a dam since 1806 or 1807; after the rebuilding of the dam, the fever and ague was more common in that section of the country than it had been before ; whether…
1Opinion of the Court
By the Court,
Sutherland, J.
There is no such thing as a prescriptive right or any other right to maintain a public nuisance. Admitting that the defendants’ dam has been erected and maintained more than 20 years, and that during the whole of that period it has rendered the adjacent country unhealthy, such length of time can be no defence to a proceeding on the part of the public to abate it, or to an action by any individual for the special and peculiar injury which he may have suffered from it. 8 Cowen, 152, 3. 4 Wendell, 9, 25. If the defendants have for 20 years been permitted to overflow…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Lansing v. SmithCourt for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors · 1829
3Cited by58 opinions
- People v. Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co.California Supreme Court · 1884
- People v. CunninghamCourt for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors · 1845
- Driggs v. . PhillipsNew York Court of Appeals · 1886
- Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Co.United States Circuit Court · 1884
- Fort Plain Bridge Co. v. . SmithNew York Court of Appeals · 1864
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