WESTPORT WARDEN'S COURT.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 789, 16 March 1871, Page 2

WESTPORT WARDEN'S COURT.

Friday, March 10. (Before J. Giles, Esq., Warden.) Peters and party v. M'Laren and party. Mr Bickerton Fisher for complainants, Mr Home for defendants. The complaint set out that, (the complainants and defendants being respectively the owners of certain claims on the Shamrock Lead, Addison's Plat) the defendants, by the careless and iuproper working of their claim, had caused large quantities of earth and stone to fall whereby the drainage of complainants' claim was interfered with, and the claim was and still i 3 Hooded with water from the iouth end of defendants' lease; and the complainants claim that the defendants be adjudged to remove the cause of the interference and to permit the drainage of the complainants' claim to flow therefrom, and to pay £2O for damages. Mr Fisher, in opening complainants' case, stated tbat the complainants held 2 men's ground on the lead surrounded, as to the north and south sides, by a seven acres lease of the defendants ; that some two years ago the defendants, with others, had put in a drainage tunnel extending from the north end of their ground in a southerly direction some 1500 feet, the complainants had offered to join in the work but the defendants refused to let them, from the main tunnel they had cut a branch some 21 feet (6 sets of timber), to complainants' western boundary breaking through into their ground, and thereby not only drawing off the complainants' water but likewise laying dry and lit for work the southern portion of their own ground, the natural fall of which was towards

complainants' claim. After working round the northern and westernboundaries of the complainants the defendants let the roof fall in and dammed up the south of their branch tunnel so that the complainants were left to shift as they could, not only with their own water hut also with the drainage from the southern portion of defendants' ground, and from which he should prove there was from a head and a half to two heads of water flowing into complainants' claim. He believed this had been done out of sheer spito and ill-will on the defendants' part, they having pursued a dog in the mauger policy towards complainants from the commencement, and threatened to freeze them out though it took 2 years to do so. He trusted that his Worship would give his clients the relief sought and also the £2O compensation for past injury. Edward Peters was called and examined by both sides. At the conclusion of his evidence the Warden intimated to Mr Fisher that he did not see how he could succeed against the defendants on the action as brought, even though he proved everything he had stated. There was no clause in the Act and no rule (that he knew of) in the regulations to compel a person who made a dam on his own ground, and for his own convenience, to keep it open for the benefit of other people when he had done with it. Mr Fisher said that he did not draw the complaint, but he conceived there had been a breach, by defendants, of rule 10, page 28; they had caused complainants' claim to be flooded and by their bad timbering had fallen the roof on their northern boundary. The Warden said lie had warned the complainants, when they came to lay the information, and advised them to see a solicitor. It would, he thought, be no use to go on with thb case in its present stage, and would advise Mr Fisher to accept a nonsuit. Nonsuit entered with costs. Professional fee £3 3s.