Court Opinion

ID: 6411508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-25 11:53:02.595647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:51:23.369951
License: Public Domain

Bigelow, J.
The rights of the parties to the use of their mills respectively did not depend on the fact that the defendant held his title to his mill privilege under a conveyance from the plaintiff. Irrespectively of the mode in which the parties acquired title to the mill privileges, each had the right to use the water belonging to his mill in a reasonable, ordinary and proper manner for the regular and usual prosecution of his business. Such use of the water by one millowner, although it might impair in some degree the efficiency of the mill privilege of another owner-on the same stream, would give no right of action to the latter. It would be damwum absque injuria. Cary v. Daniels, 8 Met. 476. Barrett v. Parsons, 10 Cush. 367. The real issue before the jury therefore, in the present case, was not as to the manner in which the plaintiff had used the upper mill and the pond below the same, while it was owned by him and before it was conveyed to the defendant; but whether the latter, since he became the owner of the upper mill, had used his privilege in a reasonable and proper manner, conformably to the usages and wants of the community, and in a mode not inconsistent with a like reasonable and proper use of the plaintiff’s mill situated on the same stream below. By the case as stated in the exceptions, it would seem that the trial of this case proceeded on a misapprehension of the true question at issue, and that the jury may have been thereby misled into an erroneous view of the rights of the parties.
We are apprehensive that they were also misled by the instructions of the court as to the amount of proof necessary to warrant them in finding a verdict for the plaintiff. If the judge *393bad gone no further than to tell the jury that the burden of proof was on the plaintiff, and that this burden would be sustained if on the whole evidence there was a preponderance of proof in his favor, his instruction would have been intelligible, precise, and strictly correct. The “ weight ” or “ preponderance of proof” is a phrase constantly used, the meaning of which is well understood and easily defined. It indicates clearly to the jury that the party having the burden of proof will be entitled to their verdict, if, on weighing the evidence in their minds, they shall find the greater amount of credible evidence sustains the issue which is to be established before them. But the phrase “ balance of probabilities,” used by the judge in his instructions as equivalent to the words “ preponderance of proof,” has no well settled or clearly defined meaning. It is at best a vague and indefinite phrase, and would rather lead the jury to infer that they might form their verdict on a guess at the truth, gathered from the evidence, than on a real solid conviction of it, founded on a careful scrutiny and examination of the proof. We cannot sanction an instruction which seems to us to introduce into the practical administration of justice a new phrase of doubtful signification, which tends to cloud the meaning of that which was before clear and well understood, and to confuse and mislead the jury in the discharge of their duty.

Exceptions sustained.