Opinion ID: 2363223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Nature of Plaintiffs' Action

Text: Plaintiffs have alleged an action in tort based upon the general rule that a landowner has a duty not to use his property so as to injure others sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. Storey v. Central Hide & Rendering Co., 148 Tex. 509, 226 S.W.2d 615 (1950); Turner v. Big Lake Oil Co., 128 Tex. 155, 96 S.W.2d 221 (1936); Gulf, C. & S.F. Ry. Co. v. Oakes, 94 Tex. 155, 58 S.W. 999 (1900). The Court of Civil Appeals cited the above cases and this general rule of tort law in holding that plaintiffs were entitled to a trial on the allegations of nuisance and negligence. The problem is that those cases, none of which related to ground water withdrawals, involved liability for the unreasonable use of correlative property rights or the balancing of legal and equitable rights between property owners. This is a concept which was deliberately rejected with respect to withdrawals of underground water when this Court adopted the common law rule that such rights are not correlative, but are absolute, and thus are not subject to the conflicting reasonable use rule. Houston & T. C. Ry. Co. v. East, 98 Tex. 146, 81 S.W. 279 (1904). Plaintiffs insist that this is not a case involving conflicting claims to the ownership or nontortuous use of water and that, therefore, the archaic and awkward common law rule adopted in East as to absolute ownership should not insulate the defendants from damages due to nuisance in fact or negligence in the manner by which they made use of their property. This is, in effect, a contention that the reasonable use doctrine should apply to ground water the same as it does to other real property. The plaintiff in East argued for the reasonable use rule in that case, and it was adopted by the Court of Civil Appeals. East v. Houston & T. C. Ry. Co., 77 S.W. 646 (Tex.Civ.App.1903, error granted). In that case the railroad company, with full knowledge of the long existence of Mr. East's small shallow well on his homestead, dug a well twenty feet in diameter and 66 feet deep on its own adjacent property, from which it pumped 25,000 gallons of water per day. This resulted in lowering the water level on plaintiff's land and drying up his well. The trial court found that the railroad's well was not a reasonable use of its property, and that plaintiff and his land had sustained damage in the sum of $206.00. Nevertheless, the trial court granted judgment for the railroad. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed and rendered judgment in favor of East. It followed what has since become known as the reasonable use or American rule as set forth in Bassett v. Salisbury Mfg. Co., 43 N.H. 569, 82 Am.Dec. 179 (1862), which held that the right of a landowner to draw underground water from his land was not absolute, but limited to the amount necessary for the reasonable use of his land, and that the rights of adjoining landowners are correlative and limited to reasonable use. The court also noted the contrary English doctrine laid down in Acton v. Blundell, 12 M. & W. 324, 152 E.R. 1223 (Ex.1843), that, if a man digs a well on his own field and thereby drains his neighbor's, he may do so unless he does it maliciously. The court said that to apply that rule under the facts shown here would shock our sense of justice.