Court Opinion

ID: 9808668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:46:15.235449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:57.164220
License: Public Domain

Merrimon, C. J.
after stating the case: Unquestionably ■ the defendant had the right to cut through and along its right-of-way and keep in repair such appropriate ditches and culverts as were necessary to carry off the surface water coming upon the right-of-way to a natural drain or outlet adequate to receive it. There was evidence of the defendant tending to prove that the ditch complained of was wholly situate upon its right-of-way; that the ditch was necessary, skilfully constructed, and that it was adequate in its capacity to carry the surface water into a natural drain without flooding the latter, unless in case of an extraordinary rain-fall. In view of the contention of the parties, the evidence and conflict of the same, we think the Court should have given the jury the third instruction asked for' by the defendant which was denied. It may be that the jury believed that the defendant had no right to divert the surface water on its right-of-way to a natural outlet, even though this were done altogether upon its own land. The instruction might have prevented such possible misapprehension. And for the like reason, the Court should have given the eighth instruction *341denied, except so much thereof as implied that the plaintiff could not recover.
The defendant had no right to collect surface water on its right-of-way and divert it, by cutting a ditch for the purpose, into a channel where it would not naturally flow, and which was not adequate to receive it, and thus flood and injure the land of another. A parly must submit to the natural disadvantages and inconveniences incident to his land, unless he can in some lawful way avoid or remove and rid himself of them. But he has no right as a general rule to rid himself of them by shifting them by artificial means to the land of another, when naturally and in the order of things they would not go upon such land or affect it adversely. Porter v. Durham, 74 N. C., 767; Wash, on Eas., 353, et seq. Nor is a railroad company or other corporation ordinarily on any footing in such respect other than a natural person.
The judgment must be reversed and a new trial granted.