Mannville Co. v. City of Worcester

This was an action of tort. It appeared at the trial that the plaintiff was the owner of a mill in Rhode Island upon the Blackstone River; and there was evidence that the defendant had withdrawn, in Massachusetts, enough of the waters of Tatnuck Brook, a tributary of that river, materially to affect the operation of the mill. The main question argued before us is raised by the refusal of a ruling requested by the defendant, that “ the diversion of the waters of a natural stream in this State and preventing the same from coming to the plaintiff’s mill, situated in Rhode Island, is not a tort…