Higday v. Nickolaus case
brief
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469 S.W.2d 859
CASE SYNOPSIS: Appellant landowners
challenged a judgment of the Circuit Court of Boone County
(Missouri), which dismissed the landowners' petition for declaratory
relief and injunction against respondent city. The landowners
requested a judicial declaration of their rights to percolating
waters under their lands and sought an injunction to prevent the city
from infringing on those rights.
FACTS: The city sought to extract groundwater from wells to supply its growing population. The landowners, a group of farmers, filed a petition for declaratory judgment and injunction, requesting the trial court to declare their rights with respect to the percolating groundwater and to prevent the city from infringing on their rights. The trial court dismissed the petition.
FACTS: The city sought to extract groundwater from wells to supply its growing population. The landowners, a group of farmers, filed a petition for declaratory judgment and injunction, requesting the trial court to declare their rights with respect to the percolating groundwater and to prevent the city from infringing on their rights. The trial court dismissed the petition.
ANALYSIS:
The court reversed and remanded,
holding that the landowners stated a real controversy and that a
declaratory judgment action was the proper method of obtaining relief
in a suit to quiet title to water rights. Under the rule of
reasonable use, an overlying owner such as the city could not
withdraw percolating water and transport it for sale or other use
away from the land from which it was taken if the result was to
impair the supply of the adjoining landowners to their injury. The
fundamental measure of the overlying owner's right to use groundwater
was whether it was for purposes incident to the beneficial enjoyment
of the land from which it was taken. The landowners' petition showed
that the landowners were threatened with wrongful invasion of their
water rights by the city and that the injury was
irreparable.
CONCLUSION: The court reversed the trial court's judgment that dismissed the landowners' petition for declaratory relief and injunction against the city and remanded the cause for further proceedings.
CONCLUSION: The court reversed the trial court's judgment that dismissed the landowners' petition for declaratory relief and injunction against the city and remanded the cause for further proceedings.
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