THE LIABILITY OF MINE OWNERS WHO FLOOD ADJOINING MINES.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1997, 31 December 1874, Page 4

THE LIABILITY OF MINE OWNERS WHO FLOOD ADJOINING MINES.

A recent decision in the English Courts, in the. case of Smith v. Fletcher and others, is of much interest to our mine owners, especially as the absence of precedents in mine legislation in this country makes the English ruling of graat value. The plaintiffs and defendants were the owners of adjoining mines, communicating with each other, and the action brought for the alleged flooding of the plaintiff's mine by the negligent and wrongful working of the defendants. It appeared from the plaintiff's case that some years ago the defendants had worked their mine by means .of open quarry as well as underground working 3, and the quarry at length communicated with the mine itself. Formerly there was an ancient brook near the quarry, which served as an intercepting drain to collect and carry off the surface water of the land ; but the defendants' workings let down its bed, and they thereupon' altered its course altogether, and substituted a new one for it. The new one, however, failed to answer either purposes of draining the land or carrying the stream, and several times overflowed, letting the water run into the quarry, and thence through the defendants' into the plaintiffs' mine. It was contended for the plaintiffs that if the defendants chose to work their mine out to the surface by means of quarrying, they were bound to prevent water pouring down it aud Whence into the plaintiffs' mine, and also that they had done. The defendants' case was that the new watercourse was one capable of carrying off more water, and was altogether a more efficient one than the old one, and that the overflowing of it, and especially that in 1871, causing the principal flooding complained of, was owing to extraordinary floods and from causes which the defendants were unable to control. Under the ruling of the Court the jury returned a verdict in the plaintiffs' favor.