Totel v. Bonnefoy

Citations

• 123 Ill. 653
• 14 N.E. 687

Syllabus

<p>1. Subface watebs—natural easement over lands of another. Where the situation of two adjoining tracts of land is such that the water falling or collected by melting snow, or the like, upon one, naturally descends upon the other, it must be suffered by the lower proprietor to be discharged upon his land, if desired by the owner of the upper tract. The owner' of the higher land will have a natural easement to have the water from the same flow upon the lower tract, which is charged with a corresponding servitude.</p> <p>2. Same—prescriptive right to drainage over the land of another. The owner of land had the use of a ditch for the drainage of the water from his land over that of another, from 1861 to 1877, when a new ditch was made near the former, the old one being'filled up, and he had the use of the new ditch until some time in 1882: Feld, that such former land owner did not thereby acquire a prescriptive right to have the surface water from his land drained over that of the adjoining owner, and that the time of the use of the new ditch could not be added to the time of the use of the old one, to make a prescriptive period of twenty years.</p>