UNWATERING OF MINE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 256, 28 October 1937, Page 9

UNWATERING OF MINE

KAMO COMPANY’S RIGHTS SUPREME COURT RULING ' RAILWAY THREATENED? [ Per Press Association. ] AUCKLAND. Oct. 27. Judgment that the Railway Department was not entitled to an injunction restraining Kamo Collieries, Ltd., from pumping water out of old mine workings beneath railway property was issued by Mr Justice Callan in the Supreme Court to-day. An order made ex parte was rescinded. The judgment leaves the way free for Kamo Collieries to recommence unwatering of its workings immediately. The company owns property on both sides of the railway line and on October 6 Mr Justice Reed granted the Railway Department an interim injunction restraining the company from continuing to pump water from the old workings. The department claimed that the withdrawal of water would take away necessary support from the railway line and lead to serious danger of its collapse. Mine’s Existence Threatened The company and its directors appeared on October 18 to ask for an order rescinding this interim injunction, which they claimed threatened the existence of their mine and their application was opposed by the Crown. His Honour said the statement of claim alleged that the company was acting in breach of statutory provisions that railway land was entitled to support from old mine workings under it and from water in the old workings. The company contended that even if the allegations in the statement of claim were true, which they in part denied, no breach of any statutory provision was disclosed, nor anything wrongful, nor anything which created a cause of action at common law or in equity. Authorities referred to by His Honour showed, he said, that in each cast the actions of a landowner who merely drained his own land were lawful and gave his neighbour no redress. Danger to Railway Line His Honour added that danger to W railway land arose from the fact that r it had been mined. Either the railway was laid upon land in which there had been mining or mining took place in land that lay beneath the railway. In his view neither circumstances resulted in the limitation of the company’s right to enjoy and use its adjoining property. His Honour held that even if the purpose of the company was to compel acquisition from them of the property under the Public Works Act this would not make their acts unlawful so far as common law was concerned.