Steamboat Co. v. Railroad Co.

Citations

• 30 S.C. 539
• 9 S.E. 650
• 1889 S.C. LEXIS 131

Syllabus

<p>1. A navigable river being a public highway, its obstruction is not only a public nuisance for which indictment will lie, but is also ground for a civil action for damages by any person who thereby sustains particular, special, or peculiar injury. In such case, a corporation chartered for purposes of transportation “on and along the rivers of the State,” has the same rights as a private individual, and no greater.</p> <p>2. In action by a steamboat company against a railroad company to recover damages for an obstruction by defendant to the navigation of a • river, the complaint alleged as its special injuries: “That by reason of said wrongful and unlawful obstruction, the plaintiff has been prevented from freely navigating the said stream in the usual and ordinary course of its business ; has been unable freely to transport freight and passengers on and along the same, as was its right; has been compelled to remove a portion of the upper works of one of its boats in order for it to pass under the said bridge, and then rebuild on the upper side; has been forced to keep and maintain one of such boats permanently above the said bridge, and has sustained loss and other great injury in its business, to its damage ten thousand dollars.” Held, that the complaint stated no special or particular injury, not common to the public at large, for which a civil action would lie.</p> <p>3. A point not presented to, nor considered by, the Circuit Judge, is not properly before this court for consideration.</p> <p>4. Under a statute which requires a railroad company to maintain such a bridge over a navigable river as will permit steamboats to pass, and imposes upon the company the expense which a steamboat may incur in lowering its smoke-stack, &c., so as to enable it to pass under such bridge — a steamboat company has no rights superior to those of a private individual; and under the complaint in this case, framed to recover damages for a special injury resulting from the bridge a