Mississippi & Tennessee R. R. v. Archibald

Citations

• 67 Miss. 38

Syllabus

<p>1. Damages. Negligence concurring with natural causes.</p> <p>A defendant cannot escape liability for injuries to tlie property of another consequent upon Ills negligent acts because the proof shows that ordinary natural agencies, presumably well known to him, concurred with such acts in producing the injury.</p> <p>2. Water-course. Obstruction by railroad. Negligence. Natural agencies contributing to injury.</p> <p>Where a railroad company, having constructed a trestle and dam across a natural water-course, suffers them to remain in such a condition that the water is backed up and overflows plaintiffs’ land, causing damage, it cannot be relieved of liability by proof that since the original construction of the trestle and dam the channel of the stream had become gradually filled up, as a result of the opening to cultivation of lands contiguous to the stream and the consequent drainage into the stream above the dam of soil and other surface material. The company, in maintaining the dam and trestle, must have regard to such changed conditions and the operation of ordinary natural agencies.</p> <p>3. Obstructing Water-course. Negligence. Continuing wrongs. Purchaser.</p> <p>A railroad company, which has negligently suffered a dam built by it across a natural water-course to remain in a condition to overflow the lands above it, is liable to the owner for injury to said land resulting from an overflow, although such owner purchased the land after the erection of the dam and with knowledge of its effects, and although no positive acts of the company have intervened since the purchase. The wrong is a continuing one.</p>