Wholey v. Caldwell

Citations

• 108 Cal. 95
• 41 P. 31
• 1895 Cal. LEXIS 828

Syllabus

<p>Riparian Rights — Natural Change of Stream — Rights of Lower Proprietor.—While a low„er riparian proprietor, as against the unwarranted act of an upper proprietor, is entitled to have the water enter his land by its accustomed channels, and to have each channel carry its due amount of water; yet, where a change in the channel of the stream has been caused, not by the act of man, but by natural causes diverting the bed of the stream from his land, he has no right to insist that the water which has flowed upon his land shall always flow upon it, or to enter upon the land of upper riparian proprietors to turn the water back into its former channel, so as to flow upon his own premises.</p> <p>Id.—Source of Riparian Rights—Laws of Nature—Natural Loss of Flow.—Riparian rights draw their support from the laws of nature, and rest upon the maxim adopted by the common law from the civil law, that water runs and ought to run as it was accustomed to run by the law df nature, and they do not rise superior to the laws of nature, and when, by the operation of those laws, the flow is lost the right is lost with it.</p>