Thrustout against Grey
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1796 |
| Date | 01 January 1796 |
| Court | High Court |
English Reports Citation: 87 E.R. 1242
COURTS OF KING'S BENCH, CHANCERY, COMMON PLEAS, EXCHEQUER.
case 274. thrustout against grey. Qucere, whether the King can license one person to build a lighthouse on another's soil; or if a person erect a lighthouse on his own soil, it is a cession of the land to the Crown. In an ejectment brought for certain cottages, otherwise lighthouses, in Wintertoun, 7 MOD. 283. HILAEY TERM, 12 GEO. 2. IN B. R. 1243 in Norfolk, the jury found a special verdict, containing the several patents under which the said lighthouses were erected, &c. Two questions arose on this special verdict. First, whether the prerogative of the Crown extends to license a person to build a lighthouse on another's soil without the owner's consent (a) 1 Secondly, whether the grantee of a licence to erect lighthouses does, by building one upon his own ground, make a cession of the land to the Crown 1 Clarke far the plaintiff argued, that the prerogative does not extend to license a man to build on another's ground. Beacons, indeed, cannot be erected without the King's licence (b); and at common law, none but the King may erect sea-marks (c). But there is only one instance of a general power to build sea-marks, [283] and that could be given only by Parliaments (a). In Easter term, in the first year of Jamea the First, it was resolved, by the two Chief Justices, the Attorney and Solicitor General, that the Statute of Elizabeth was a general law, extending to all lighthouses. In this case there ought to have issued an ad quod damnum (b). The present question will receive a great light from the general laws of nations, wherein the publica utilitas is not understood to mean anything lucrative, or to increase the public coffers or treasures, which would make property precarious; but he who loses his property for the public safety or service ought to be satisfied for it (e). Grotius (d) says, that losses for the public good ought to be equal. Puffendorff (e), who wrote about fifty years after Grotius, speaking of the sovereign power over estates, sums up all Grotius's arguments into one chapter: and our laws agree with these general reasons. In the case of the prerogative of the Crown in digging salt-petre (/) it is said, that the inheritance muat be left as it was found ; that what is done out of necessity ought to be repaired:; and that it is but a purveyance, and is not to be granted (g). In 1 Hale'a H. P. Cor. 56 there is a record of a case where a county ransomed themselves from the King's enemies for their common welfare, but the party who paid the fine was recompensed for it (A,). This prerogative can hurt no man's inheritance. The necessity...
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