RIVER PROTECTION

Southland Times, Issue 18984, 19 November 1920, Page 5

RIVER PROTECTION

PRIVY COUNCIL DISMISS APPEAL. GERRARD v. CROWE. A cablegram from London states that the Privy Council have dismissed the New Zealand appeal case Gerrard versus Crowe and another, with costs. This case was heard at Invercargill in October, 1917, before Mr Justice Sim. Mr W. Macalistcr (Crown Prosecutor) appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr Solomon, K.C., with Mr Lillicrap, for the defendant. The .parties were occupiers of property on either side of the Oreti River. Judgment went for the plaintiff, the Judge holding that the defendant would have been free from liability had the wall been on the bank of the river, but that, as the bank was some distance from the margin of the river, he was responsible. The case went to the Court of Appeal in April, 1918, and came before the Chief Justice (Sir R. Stout) and Justice Cooper, Chapman, and Hosking. The appeal was upheld, the majority of the Court holding that the defendant was justified in law in acting as he did. Mr Justice Hosking dissented from the judgment, upon the ground that the defendant had under the circumstances no legal right to protect himself at the expense of his neighbour. The plaintiff then appealed to the Privy Council, and the cablegram above quoted shows that the judgment of the Court of Appeal is upheld. The decision of the Privy Council is of great importance, because it definitely settles the serious question of whether a dweller on the bank of a river which is in the habit of overflowing in no regular channels can, by building a wall on his own property, to save himself from the consequence of such overflow, cast upon his neighbour’s land, to his neighbour’s loss, water which would otherwise come upon his own land.