Collins v. Chartiers V. Gas Co.

Citations

• 131 Pa. 143
• 18 A. 1012
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1091

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. The rule definitively settled in Penna. Coal Co v. Sanderson, 113 Pa. 126, that for unavoidable damage to another’s land, in the lawful use of one’s own, no action can be maintained, does not exempt a landowner from all obligation to pay regard to the effect of liis operations on subterranean waters.</p> <p>2. The distinction between rights in surface and in subterranean waters is not founded on the fact of their location above or below ground, but on the fact of knowledge, actual, or reasonably acquirable, of their existence, location and course; in either case, the rule of damnum absque injuria applies only in the absence of negligence: Wheatley v. Baugh, 25 Pa. 528; Haldeman v. Bruckhart, 45 Pa. 514 ; Lybe’s App., 106 Pa. 634.</p> <p>3. If a person boring for oil or gas have knowledge that neighboring water wells are supplied from a stratum of clear water underlying his land, and that there is a deeper stratum of salt water likely to rise and mingle with the fresh, when penetrated in such boring, and may prevent this mingling by a reasonable outlay, his failure to use the means available therefor is negligence.</p> <p>4. Whether, for an injury to the water well of a neighbor from suc-h commingling, plainly to be anticipated and reasonably preventable, the owner of a gas well, who committed the drilling of it to an independent contractor, without requiring the use of any means to guard against such injury, is liable, notwithstanding the letting of the drilling out upon such contract, not decided.*</p>