The Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Liverpool v The Chorley Waterworks Company
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 22 December 1852 |
| Date | 22 December 1852 |
| Court | High Court of Chancery |
English Reports Citation: 42 E.R. 1105
COURT OF APPEAL IN CHANCERY
P552] the mayor, aldermen and burgesses of liverpool . the chorley waterworks company. Before the Lords Justices. Dec. 2, 3, 4, 22, 1852. 1. Persons obtaining from the Legislature power to interfere with the rights of property are bound strictly to adhere to the powers so conceded to them, to do no more than the Legislature has sanctioned, and to proceed only in the mode which the Legislature has pointed out ; but (except in a proceeding at the instance of the 1106 THE MAYOR, ETC., OF LIVERPOOL V. 3DE-Q.M.ft0.MS. Attorney-General) any one seeking the assistance of a Court of Equity, to restrain the violation of such a contract with the Legislature, is bound to shew that he has a private interest in the matter. 2. Therefore, where a Waterworks Act empowered a Company to divert the water of a stream (without limit as to quantity) by means of an open channel filled with loose stones, and they were diverting it by means of a culvert-Held, that another company who were entitled to the water of a stream into which the diverted stream had flowed were not entitled to an injunction to restrain a violation of the terms of the Act as to the mode of diversion. 3. The dismissal of a bill does not prejudice the right to file another for the same purpose under a different state of circumstances. This was an appeal from the decision of Vice-Chancellor Kindersley. The question raised in the suit was as to the right or the extent of the right of the Defendants to divert and appropriate the water of certain streams arising in and flowing down a mountainous district in Lancashire called Anlezark Moor. By an Act of Parliament entitled "The Chorley Waterworks Act, 1846 " (which is a public Act), the Defendants were made a body corporate for the purpose of making reservoirs, aqueducts and conduits and for laying [853] down pipes and executing all other necessary and convenient works for supplying the town and neighbourhood of Chorley with water. In order to enable them to accomplish the objects for which they were thus incorporated, various powers were given to them of which those that are material are the following:- By the 19th section the company has power to enter into or upon any lands, waters and other places mentioned in the plan and book of reference deposited with the clerk of the peace, and to dig and break up the soil making satisfaction in manner in the Act mentioned to the persons interested. By the 23d section the company are empowered from time to time to divert or alter the course of a brook or stream in Anlezark Moor shewn and described in the plan and designated therein " brook" above a fall marked H. on the plan, and to appropriate the same for the purposes of their undertaking; and also to collect, obtain, divert and take and appropriate to the purposes of their undertaking all water, from all springs and streams and land or surface drainage, which would flow into or be intercepted by certain watercourses which were intended to be made by the company and were to commence at and above the fall of the brook at the point marked H. They were to flow into or communicate with an intended reservoir situate in the township of Anlezark near a farmhouse called the Brook House, and thence to flow into and communicate with another intended reservoir situate in the townships of Chorley and Heath Charnock or one of them after leaving a sufficient supply of the water of such springs or streams for the use of the several estates in which the same should respectively arise or through which the same should respectively flow into the said watercourse or reservoirs. [804] The 32d section on the construction of which the question principally turned was as follows :-"And be it enacted that where the water for the supply of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Chorley shall be conveyed by the said company through an open watercourse, such watercourse shall be filled up by the said company with broken stones to the level of the land on each side and always kept so filled up by the said company to the said level, and that it shall be lawful for the said company to enter into and upon the adjoining lands for the purpose of repairing or cleansing the said watercourse, and to make such entry when and so often as such repair or cleansing shall be required." By the 33d section it was enacted that before the company should be entitled to supply water to the town and inhabitants of Chorley they should discharge, and for ever afterwards continue to discharge, into the stream immediately below a reservoir called on the plans the " compensation reservoir " a quantity of water after the rate of three-quarters of a cubic foot per second constantly to be measured as therein mentioned, and the company were thereby required to allow all surplus or waste water from this reservoir to flow down the same stream into which the above-mentioned quantity of water was to be discharged. In the year next after that in which the Chorley Act passed the Plaintiffs obtained a DEO. H.&G.8S5. THE CHORLEY WATERWORKS CO. 1107 an Act of Parliament entitled "The Liverpool Corporation...
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