NEW ORLEANS. WATER-Worms co. ·v. ERNST. 5
Naw Onrnus Warm-Wonns Co. v.,EaNsr and. others. SAME v. MA-
cnuvrs On. & Soar Womzs. SAME 1:. Rucu. Sum v. Naw OR-
Lmms C. & L. R. Co} y .
(Umuit Court, E. D. Louisiana. June 15, 1887.)
1. Warm: Courmr-Excnusrvm Parvrnnens. “ W
An injunction will not issue to prevent defendants from procuring water
from a river in pipes, in a city where the exclusive privilege to do so has been .
granted to a company, when such company has no mains, or no adequate
mains, for the delivery of water in suincient quantities for the wants o the
defendants. _ _ .
2. SAME—"CONTIGUOUS PnnsoN"—Lomsnuu Srxrurn.
The charter of the New Orleans Water·Works Company (Acts La. 1877, p.
51) provides, in section 18, “that nothing in this act shall be so construed as ’
to prevent the city council from granting to any person or persons, contigu-
ous to the river, the rlprivilege of aying pipes to the river, exclusively for his
or their own use. " he supreme court of the United States decided in Water-
Warlm O0. v. Rivers, 115 U. S. 674, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 273, that the proprietor of
V a building ive blocks from the river was not "a contiguous person. " There-
fore no lot can be contiguous unless it actually fronts on the river, or is sep-
arated from the river only by a public highway, with no private owner inter-
vening, or, possibly, on a block or square so situated. V
On Rule Niei for Inj unctions.
J. R. Beckwith, for complainant. l
» B. Ftank Jonas and J. O. Nixon, Jr., for Ernst & Co. and Louis Ruch.
' W. S. Benedikt, for Maginnis Oil Co. l
Geo. H. Braughn, Chas. Fl Buck, Max Dinkclqzeil, and W. O. Hart, for
New Orleans C. & L. R. Co.
Brnmives, J. Two questions are presented in addition to those already ~
passed upon by former decrees in this court: V
1. Whether an injunction shall issue when the complainant has no
mains, or no adequate mains, for the delivery of water in sutlicient
quantities for the wants of the defendants. This question must be an-
swered in the negative, from the very title of the act under which the
complainants claim, which is as follows: " No. 33. An act to enable _
the city of New Orleans to promote the public health, and to afford
greater security against hre, by the establishment of a corporation to
be called the "‘ New Orleans Water-Works Company,"’ etc. It cannot
be that it was the intention of the legislature to deprive any person of,
or;to limit any person in, the use of water by the exclusive right given
to complainant. The object of the grant, and the creation of the water-
works corporation, was to furnish, and not deprive of, water. The
clause in complainant’s charter which requires it to lay mains in streets
whenever the water rates in any street of petitioners amount to 10
per cent. per annum of the cost of laying mains, was intended to give
the citizens an additional right, and by no means takes away their
i Reported by Joseph P. Horner, Esq., of the New Orleans bar.