Crittenton v. Alger
Crittenton v. Alger
Opinion of the Court
This case comes before us upon exceptions to the ruling of the court of common pleas, dismissing the action from that court, for want of jurisdiction. And the only question is, whether the plaintiff’s action respected an easement belonging to his real estate. This depends on his declaration, which contains two counts. These counts, we think, set out substantially the same legal rights of the plaintiff, and the same injuries by the defendant. And if these rights create an easement on the estate of the defendant, then the case is not within the jurisdiction of the court of common pleas, and the judgment of that court was correct.
The plaintiff’s counsel have argued that this was an injury to the plaintiff’s personal estate, and to the realty itself, and not an injury to the easement. But this position, though ingenious, cannot be maintained. The injury to the personal estate is consequential; and if the defendant had a right to use the stream for washing ore, then, though the plaintiff’s personal property was injured, he could maintain no action for such injury, because the defendant’s act was lawful. No trespass has been committed upon the plaintiff, and his realty has not been disturbed. The injury, therefore, is a violation of the plaintiff’s right to receive the water in its natural course from the defendant’s close, free from foreign mixtures of dirt and ore, which fill up his pond and injure his skins and hides by impure matter. This is an unlawful obstruction of nis right to the water in its natural state, and is not distinguishable from the case of Cary v. Daniels, 5 Met. 236, which was thoroughly examined. There the defendant, by erecting a dam, threw back water upon the plaintiff’s wheel, and obstructed the use of it, by checking the regular flow of the water from the plaintiff’s premises ; the defendant being below the plaintiff on the stream. Here the defendant is
In the present case, there were the respective estates of the plaintiff and defendant; the dominant tenement in the mill and tannery of the plaintiff, and the servient tenement in the land of the defendant. The plaintiff claims the flow of water from the defendant’s land, -unobstructed and undefiled ; and that right, if established by him, is an easement in the defendant’s land. It is that species of property or right in another man’s property, and his use of it, which is known and treated as an easement, and, as such, is the subject of legal protection. This right, the plaintiff contends, has been injured ,• and St. 1840, c. 87, distinctly confers upon this court the exclusive jurisdiction in the trial of such rights, by giving it such jurisdiction of “all actions respecting easements on real estate.” Following, therefore, the authority of Cary v. Daniels, which we do not wish to disturb by the adoption of nice distinctions, which neither justice nor sound
Exceptions overruled.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Levi Crittenton, Jr. v. Charles C. Alger
- Status
- Published