{"id":228,"date":"2019-07-17T19:02:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T19:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=228"},"modified":"2023-12-15T21:57:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T21:57:18","slug":"civil-law-or-natural-flow-rule-interpreted-to-allow-artificial-drainage-of-subsurface-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2019\/07\/17\/civil-law-or-natural-flow-rule-interpreted-to-allow-artificial-drainage-of-subsurface-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil law or natural flow rule interpreted to allow artificial drainage of subsurface water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While the &#8220;free use&#8221; rule generally allows an owner to expel surface and subsurface water without liability, the civil law or &#8220;natural flow&#8217; rule imposes liability on an owner who artificially captures and expels such waters, especially if done in a direction different from the watercourse or the natural direction of water flow. However, interpreting a state statute codifying the civil law rule, (S.D. Codified Laws \u00a746A-10A-70,\u00a0the South Dakota Supreme Court allowed an owner to expel subsurface waters through a drainage system as long as the water followed the natural direction of drainage and the water discharged into any established or natural watercourse.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cases.justia.com\/south-dakota\/supreme-court\/2019-28525.pdf?ts=1547129527\">In re Drainage Permit 11-81<\/a>, 922 N.W.2d 263 (S.D. 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/nuisance\/\" rel=\"tag\">Nuisance<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/water-rights\/\" rel=\"tag\">Water Rights<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the &#8220;free use&#8221; rule generally allows an owner to expel surface and subsurface water without liability, the civil law or &#8220;natural flow&#8217; rule imposes liability on an owner who artificially captures and expels such waters, especially if done in a direction different from the watercourse or the natural direction of water flow. However, interpreting a state statute codifying the civil law rule, (S.D. Codified Laws \u00a746A-10A-70,\u00a0the South Dakota Supreme Court allowed an owner to expel subsurface waters through a drainage system as long as the water followed the natural direction of drainage and the water discharged into any established or natural watercourse.\u00a0In re Drainage Permit 11-81, 922 N.W.2d 263 (S.D. 2019).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuisance","category-water-rights"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}