Stowell v. Flagg
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
This was an action of the case brought against the defendant for erecting a dam across a stream, whereby the plaintiff’s land was overflowed, &c.
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This was an action of the case brought against the defendant for erecting a dam across a stream, whereby the plaintiff’s land was overflowed, &c. After a trial of the cause in this Court, April term, 1812, before the late Judge Sedgwick, upon which a verdict was returned for the plaintiff, the defendant moved in arrest of judgment, “ because it appears, by the record in the case, that the injury which the plaintiff has sustained, as set forth in his declaration, if any, arose from a mill-dam, which was erected to raise a suitable head of water for the working of his mill, as set forth in his…
1Opinion of the CourtParker, C. J.
This is an action of the case at common law, to recover damages by reason of the flowing of the plaintiff’s land, occasioned by the erection and continuance of a dam across a stream of water, running through the soil of the defendant; which dam was erected for the purpose of raising a head of water sufficient to carry mills owned and occupied by the defendant.
* There is no doubt that such an action lies at com- [ * 865 ] mon law for this consequential injury, upon the common maxim that every man is so to use his own property as not te*332injure his neighbor; and if an injury does ensue from an…
2Cases cited1 opinion
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