Nathan v. Charlotte Street Railway Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding defendant unlawfully diverted overflow of surface water from lake onto the plaintiff's property
• noting that plaintiff wanted to “cause [water] to pass off onto the lands of the defendants in error in increased quantities, in a different state[,] and in a manner well calculated to 13 inflict injury”
• explaining that \the validity and legal effect of contracts and of grants of land made before the adoption of the common law must be determined according to the civil law in effect at the time of the grants\
• “[L]ands lower than the coterminous estate owe a service to receive the burden of surface waters which may flow from the higher estate onto the lower, so long as the surface water from the dominant estate reaches the borders of the servient one untouched and undirected by the hands of man.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).