Spink v. Philadelphia Hydro-Electric Co.

Citations

• 245 Pa. 143
• 91 A. 609
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 848

Syllabus

<p>Equity — Injunctions—Water rights — Res adjudicata — Public rights — Enforcement by private parties — Necessity for specific injury.</p> <p>1. A final decree in a cause is a finality as to the claim there made by the plaintiff, and as to every matter which was offered- and received to sustain or defeat the claim and all admissible matters which might have been so offered.</p> <p>2. .Where the respective rights of grantor and grantee under a grant to supply water for power purposes have been adjudicated in a proceeding to restrain the grantor from installing a device in the forebay for the purpose of limiting the grantee’s water supply to the amount provided for in the grant, the grantee is subject to the rule of res adjudicata in a subsequent proceeding to restrain the installation of the same device, brought against his grantor and a third party to whom the latter had assigned all its rights in the premises and to whom it had sold all the water in its control in excess of the amount granted to its original grantee, where it does not appear that the grantee is threatened with any diminution of the supply to which it is entitled under the grant, and where the new facts alleged could not enlarge the plaintiff’s right in respect to the amount of water he is entitled to receive.</p> <p>3. Where in such case the plaintiff claims that defendant is a public water company, obliged to recognize and protect equities existing between those dependent upon it for their supply of water, and that it had failed in this duty, the injury complained of, if it exists, is one that the plaintiff shares with the general public and is not specific in any other sense than that the disappointment in plaintiff’s case may be greater than in that of some of the others, and in view of the fact that the company has been held to owe no duty to plaintiff as an individual, distinct from the general public, he has no standing to raise such a question.</p>