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fendant takes upon himself to cut down a tree in the plaintiff's wood, and he takes measures, by the aid of the police (the plaintiff in that respect properly acquiescing) to prevent the resistance by force on the part of the plaintiff to that illegal act. So that the plaintiff, unless the court should help him, is powerless to prevent the irreparable destruction of his timber; and the defendant threatens upon his own statement to bring down a body of navvies from London to cut an opening through the wood, which, in my judgment, means to cut down trees in the wood; and the plaintiff's witness proves that the defendant threatened to cut down twenty more trees. A clearer case for the interference of the court, unless there is authority to prevent it, I cannot imagine. It is true that there have been authorities on analogous subjects which are in a condition that may well be said, as to some of them, to be not entirely reasonable or satisfactory, but the most doubtful of those authorities in modern times are cases where a person out of possession, alleging it might be a bona fide, incontrovertible title, sought to prevent ordinary acts of ownership of a person, also alleging title bona fide, who was in possession; and in those cases the court would not think fit to interfere, and even allowed demurrers when there were suggestions of what would be equitable waste. It is not for us to say whether, in those particular cases, the court rightly exercised their discretion, if it was a question of discretion, or rightly decided the law, if it was matter of law. It is enough to say that the present case is not like them, and that this case resembles one (Lowndes v. Bettle, 10 L. T. Rep. N. S. 55) in which a very learned and accurate judge, Sir R. Kindersley, very righteously and properly granted a similar injunction. have very great satisfaction in expressing our approval of that decision of Kindersley, V.C, and following its authority, and we dismiss the appeal

motion with costs.

Lord Justice JAMES Concurred.

Lord Justice MELLISH also concurred.

We

Appeal motion accordingly dismissed with costs. Solicitors for the appellant, Senior, Attree, and Johnson.

Solicitor for the respondent, Dobree.

Wednesday, Jan. 14.

(Before the LORD CHANCELLOR (Selborne) and the LORDS JUSTICES.)

GOODSON v. RICHARDSON. Highway-Owner of soil-Trespass-Mandatory injunction-Injury completed before bill filed. Where a person lays down water pipes under a highway without the permission of the owners of the soil of the highway, the court will, at the instance of one of such owners, grant a mandatory injunction restraining the trespasser from allowing the pipes to remain there, although the work has been completed before tho filing of the bill, and will not require the plaintiff in the first instance to establish his right by an action at law. Deere v. Guest (1 My. & Cr. 516), explained and distinguished.

THIS was an appeal from a decision of the Master of the Rolls.

The facts of the case were as follows:

The plaintiff, Stephen Goodson, was the owner in fee of one undivided moiety of certain lands in

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the parish of St. Peter the Apostle, in the Isle of Thanet, abutting for a distance of about seventyfour yards on the highway leading from Ramsgate to Broadstairs, and also of the soil of the highway adjoining his lands up to the middle thereof.

The defendant was the owner of certain lands in the same parish, and had erected divers houses thereon.

On the 9th April 1873, the plaintiff and several other landowners in the same parish, having learnt that the defendant had obtained permission from the Highway Board of the Isle of Thanet District to break up the surface of certain of the highways in their jurisdiction, including the highway adjoining the plaintiff's lands, for the purpose of laying a number of water pipes in the soil beneath the highways, for the supply of his houses, served him with a notice in the following words:

We, the undersigned, landowners of the parish of St. Peter the Apostle, Thanet, do hereby give you notice not to lay pipes through or under so much of the land belonging to us, or any or either of us, as now forms the site of any of the public highways of the said parish of St. Peter the Apostle, and forthwith to remove any pipes already laid by you through any land belonging to us or any or either of us, as aforesaid. And we further give you notice, that in case you shall act contrary to this notice, or refuse in any particular to comply therewith, we shall apply to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to restrain such your illegal proceedings.-Dated this 9th April 1873.

This notice was signed by the plaintiff and twelve other landowners, and was accompanied by a letter from the plaintiff's solicitors, stating that they had been instructed to file a bill without delay, in case he should continue his illegal proceedings, contrary to the notice.

The evidence showed that the plaintiff did not become aware of the defendant's intention till the 18th March 1873, when the defendant applied to the highway board for leave to open the road, and that he at once took legal advice on the subject.

The highway board, in answer to the defendant's application, passed a resolution on the 8th April 1873, that the permission should be given him, so far only as it lawfully could or might, but not further or otherwise, to break up the surface of the highways for the purpose of laying the pipes; but the clerk of the board, in communicating to the defendant the resolution of the board, wrote him a letter expressly warning him that the rights of the board only extended to the surface of the high

ways.

This letter reached the defendant on the morning of the 9th April, and he at once set men to work, and the pipes were laid and covered up by two o'clock in the afternoon of that day.

The defendant stated that he did not receive the notice from the plaintiff till the work was completed.

The bill, which was filed on the 21st April, prayed for an injunction to restrain the defendant from laying or maintaining any mains or other pipes in or through the land or soil beneath the surface of the highway adjoining the plaintiff's lands, or from allowing any pipes which had been already laid by the defendant in or through the said land or soil to remain therein.

The Master of the Rolls granted an interim injunction on the 24th April, and at the hearing made the injunction perpetual.

In delivering his judgment on the hearing, the Master of the Rolls said:-As I understand the law, this is an undefended case. Whether judges

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have, in other cases, given damages or not must depend on the particular circumstances of those cases. His Honour then stated the facts of the case and continued:] Now, as to the law. It is said that this court will not interfere by injunction except there is serious injury to the plaintiff. I demur to that statement of the law. The real test is, whether the injury can be easily and readily compensated in damages. If it cannot, then as a general rule there is a case for an injunction. Now, what is the test of compensation in damages? Here is a case in which it is very difficult to say that the plaintiff can be seriously damaged. It is land so peculiarly situated that it is not readily available for profitable occupation. But it might be, for there might be a coal mine under it. But that does not happen to be the case. Therefore, you cannot estimate the damage, and you have exactly the case put by Lord Canworth in The Rochdale Canal Company v. King (2 Sim., N. S. 78), where you deprive the plaintiff of that for which the defendant is willing to pay a high price, if he cannot get it illegally; but where you cannot say that the abstraction of the property inflicts any injury or loss on the plaintiff. In that case the plaintiffs were the owners of the Rochdale Canal, the defendant was a manufacturer near the banks of the canal, and he abstracted a very small quantity of water, relatively to the bulk of water in the canal, for the purpose of working his steamengine. The quantity abstracted was so small that it did not affect the flow of water in the canal, and inflicted no appreciable injury on the plaintiffs, but if this court interferes by restraining the defendant from doing that which, if it had been a personal chattel, would have been called stealing, and would have subjected him to criminal proceedings, but which being what in this court is called real estate, did not subject him to those proceedings-if the court had abstained from interference it would have allowed the defendant to take away the plaintiffs' property, for which he ought to pay a high price, for nothing; and, therefore, it was a case in which the court, being bound to protect the rights of property, which think are not ideal, and being bound to protect the rights of property, which I cannot assent are so mythical that the court cannot understand them, said, if that is the case, this court must interfere by injunction. Now, here, we have a case in which I am satisfied that the defendant would be very willing to pay a fair rent for the easement or privilege of laying his pipes along this road. It is exactly the same case as The Rochdale Canal Company v. King. The taking away the small space of road at some depth below the surface may not cause any appreciable injury or damage to the plaintiff; but if he can let the right of laying pipes to the defendant or anyone else who wants to lay pipes along the road, and they get an easement rent for this privilege, the defendant, who is taking his property by force, and against his will, is in exactly the same position as he would be in if he were stealing his goods, except that it is not criminal. And I am not to interfere at all! That is the position_gravely laid down by learned counsel at the bar. If we are to ⚫ remain a law-abiding country, it appears to me that we shall only so remain by courts of justice respecting the rights of property and enforcing them and preventing that lawless destruction or interference with them of which we have an in

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stance in this case. I have no hesitation in granting the injunction preventing the defendant allowing the pipes to remain on the plaintiff's land, and I shall also order him to pay the costs of the suit.

From this order the defendant appealed.

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Jackson, Q.C. and Beaumont, for the appellant.— The work having been completed before the filing of the bill, this court will not grant a mandatory injunction, unless it can be proved that the damage caused to the plaintiff is very serious, and that is not pretended to be the case here. In Hindley v. Emery (13 L. T. Rep. N. S. 272; L. Rep. 1 Eq. 54), Wood, V.C. said: It may be conceded that if all the mischief had already been completed before the filing of the bill, this court would not have jurisdiction to entertain the suit for injunction." And in Durell v. Pritchard (13 L. T. Rep. N. S. 545; L. Rep. 1 Ch. 250), Lord Justice Turner says that "this court will not interfere by way of mandatory injunction, except in cases in which extreme, or at all events very serious, damage will ensue from its interference being withheld." Deere v. Guest (1 My. & Cr. 516) exactly governs the present case. There the defendants had constructed. a tramroad over the plaintiff's land without his permission, and merely with the assent of the occupying tenant of the land, and Lord Cottenham held that there was no equity to grant an injunc-tion, although the leave of the tenant had been obtained by means of circumvention and fraud, and he left the plaintiff to his proper legal remedy against them as trespassers. There is really no damage done to the plaintiff by allowing these pipes to remain, and that being so, the court ought not to interfere by injunction. In Bowes v. Law (22 L. T. Rep. N. S. 267; L. Rep. 9 Eq. 636), where the defendant, for the purpose of a vinery, built a garden wall to such a height that it was held to be a breach of a covenant not to erect buildings, James, V.C. refused a mandatory injunction, and gave these reasons for his refusal "I am of opinion, having regard to all the circumstances, and considering that no substantial annoyance has been occasioned to the plaintiff, and no substantial injury done to any right of property of his, that a declaration will be sufficient for the purpose of protecting the title, and I do not think it necessary to give the plaintiff the power of doing such an unreasonable and unneighbourly act as that of taking down this vinery, which is a great convenience to the defendant, and. the taking down of which would not confer on the plaintiff himself any benefit." Those words apply exactly to the present case. It is able and unneighbourly of the plaintiff to require these pipes to be removed, for their presence does him no injury at all.

Without calling upon

very unreason

Southgate, Q.C. and Davey, who appeared in support of the order of the Master of the Rolls,

The LORD CHANCELLOR (Selborne) said: In this case the Master of the Rolls has thought it right,, in the exercise of that discretion which Mr. Beaumont very properly said is a judicial and not an arbitrary discretion vested in the court, to grant an. injunction to restrain the continuance of certain water pipes which the defendant has placed on the plaintiff's land. Now, it is undoubtedly true that the court, in determining whether in cases where the legal remedy exists, it will leave the parties to that legal remedy or interfere by way of

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injunction, has regard to the circumstances of each particular case, and amongst those circumstances is no doubt the material one, at what time a work has been executed, and what will be the relative bearing upon the particular parties of the interference of the court on the one hand, or leaving them to their legal rights and liabilities on the other. But I apprehend that the court has nowhere said that when a trespass of this kind has been committed in circumstances at all similar to the present, the mere fact of the trespass being complete at the time when the bill was filed will prevent the plaintiff from getting an injunction against the continuance of a trespass of this kind, the particular kind of trespass being this, that the plaintiff is the owner of the soil through which these pipes have been laid, and no one has a right to take for such a purpose the soil, except under contract with him with his consent. The plaintiff, at the same time, has not the right of an unlimited owner in respect of that soil, because the upper surface being dedicated to the public for the purpose of a public highway, which is under the management of local authorities, he cannot use the land or deal with it by breaking it open or obstructing the highway, or in any other manner so as to interfere with the use of it by the public upon the surface for the purpose of a highway, and, therefore, these pipes being laid below the surface, the plaintiff might not be able, without exposing himself to difficulties with the public authorities, who are the guardians of the highway, to redress the matter for himself in the easy and simple manner in which he could if the same thing had been done in an ordinary field. It is said that this objection of the plaintiff to the laying of these pipes without his consent on his land, is an unneighbourly thing, and that the right is one of substantially little or no value, and one which Parliament, if it were to deal with the question, might possibly disregard. What Parliament might do if it were to deal with the question, is, I apprehend, not a matter for our consideration now, as Parliament has not dealt with the question. Parliament is at liberty to take a higher view upon the balance struck between private rights and public interests than this court can do when Parliament has not interfered; and with respect to the suggested absence of value of the land in its present situation to the plaintiff, it is enough that the very fact of no interference of this kind being one which can lawfully take place without his consent and without a bargain with him, gives him, even in a pecuniary point of view, precisely the value which that power of veto for such uses creates when such uses are to any person desirable and an object sought to be attained. Besides which, I am not all prepared to accede to the proposition that it is an unneighbourly act for a man, whose motives for desiring to prevent a particular act may be collateral to his interest in the land, such, for instance, as an interest as a proprietor of waterworks, to say to his neighbour who wishes to compete with him in that business, "You are perfectly at liberty to enter into competition with me as a seller of water to the public of Ramsgate in any lawful manner, but you are not at liberty to take my land without my consent for the purpose of competing with my trade, and I shall object to your doing so." In that, I confess, I can see nothing unneighbourly whatever. Then, what are the actual circumstances of this case? The plaintiff has certainly been

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guilty of neither acquiescence nor delay. I cannot conceive that at any time whatsoever the plaintiff had any notice, or had any reason to suppose, that it was the purpose or intention of the defendant to deal unlawfully in any manner with the plaintiff's land. He had notice that he applied on the 18th March to the highway board for such authority as they were able to give for the use of the public highway, or interference, I should rather say, with the public highway, for the purpose of laying the water pipes, according to a plan which, extending to many other streets and places in the market, extended also to the street, the soil of which is now in question. That was an application to persons whose authority, though not sufficient, was necessary; and so far from being notice of an intention or purpose on the defendant's part to proceed without lawful authority and against the law, the very nature of the application, as far as it went, indicated an intention to keep within the law, and obtain, if he could obtain, all necessary consents. I think we must impute to both parties, whatever their actual knowledge of law may have been, so much knowledge as this, that no man's land could be interfered with without his consent, and that this particular land belonged to somebody, and in point of fact that that somebody was the plaintiff. Therefore, what passed upon the 18th March was in no way whatever notice to the plaintiff of an intention to do something at variance with his rights, and so far from anything at variance with his rights having been done afterwards, before he served his own notice of the 9th April, I am very much struck with the fact that, as far as the evidence goes, the true conclusion from it seems to me to be, that whatever was done on his land was begun and finished on that one day, and in the forenoon of that day, the 9th April. There is a studious absence in the defendant's evidence of any information to the court of the precise time at which the works on the plaintiff's lands were commenced, and I think it a just inference that they were begun on that day and finished before, I think it is said, two o'clock on that day, having been carried through with very remarkable haste and expedition. It is certainly a remarkable thing, that on the morning of that day, and before that was done, if I am right in my inference from the evidence, a notice had been sent by the highway board to the defendant, telling him that he was not at liberty to do this without the consent of the owner, though the defendant says, and I must assume for the present purpose that he truly says, that he was not at home when that notice arrived, and did not see it till the work had been done. Whether in any other way any people acted for him in his absence I do not know, for the plaintiff had some reason to apprehend that there were circumstances to make it important to carry on the work, but it is a fact of which I cannot but take notice, that the work was hurried on, on the plaintiff's land, as I infer, with extraordinary dispatch on the morning of that day on which the plaintiff gave his own notice that a bill would be filed for an injunction, if it was attempted to be done upon the supposed consent of the highway board, who never proposed to consent except so far as they lawfully might, which fact he knew on the 24th March, because he then executed an instrument which contains these very words. It was, I say, a remarkable fact, that the work was hurried on so as to be finished on the very day the

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plaintiff's notice was given, and to make it a question of an hour, more or less, between the conclusion of the work and the time when the notice was delivered. In that state of things, and looking to the nature of the work that was capable of being so quickly done and done in that manner, I have no hesitation in saying that I regard this court as bound to deal with the case exactly as it would have done if the bill had been filed (not as it was a few days afterwards in consequence of a notice given an hour after this work was completed) on the morning of the day before any part of the work had been done, and going upon the particular circumstances of this case, I cannot but look upon this case as a deliberate and unlawful invasion by one man on another man's land for the purpose of creating a continuing trespass, which is in law a series of trespasses from time to time, to the gain and profit of the defendant without the consent of the owner of the land, and it appears to me as such to be a proper subject for an injunction. The cases which have been referred to are really of two classes, either cases of ancient rights, such as Durell v. Pritchard (13 L. T. Rep. N. S. 545; L. Rep. 1 Ch. 244), and of Bowes v. Law (22 L. T. Rep. N. S. 267; L. Rep. 9 Eq. 636), where a man had done something upon his own land which belonged out and out to himself, but in doing it had exposed himself to an action by the other party, either as breaking some covenant or as encroaching upon the other's right of lights and rights of that kind. The thing was finished, and in the judgment of the court it was more equitable, having regard to the consequences to the one party or the other of interference or non-interference, to leave the parties in that state of things to their legal rights and liabilities rather than to interfere; and, no doubt, in such a state of things the quantum of damage to the plaintiff, as compared with the quantum of loss to the defendant, is a material consideration. The other class of cases is that of Deere v. Guest (1 My. & Cr. 516), which, when rightly considered, amounts to neither more nor less than this, that there was an action of ejectment brought in the Court of Chancery without any equitable circumstances to induce the court of equity to assume that jurisdiction. In Deere v. Guest, the facts were these: The defendant had made a tramway and completed it openly, and so that everybody interested in the land either did or might have known what was taking place, three years before the bill was filed. That had been done lawfully, with the consent at the time, at all events, of the owner of the land, subject to the question of the possibility of waste, into which I will not enter. That was a case between landlord and tenant, but so far as the possession was concerned, it had been acquired lawfully by the consent of the then occupying tenant. This occupation continued for about three years afterwards, and so far as appears from the statement on the bill (for that case arose on demurrer), even when the tenancy ceased, the land was relet to a person who, upon the allegation in the bill, must be taken to have consented, so far as he could consent, to the continuance of the occupation of the tramroad by the defendant. The bill, however, contained an allegation, which Lord Cottenham considered obscure and indistinct, that when the land was so relet the plaintiff, whose position I shall presently mention, had reserved to himself the tramroad, so that his allegation was, that the right to the tram

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road or to the possession of the land for the purposes of it, had been originally given by the person in occupation, that it was confirmed by the person subsequently in occupation, but who had no right to remain, because the tramroad had been excepted from the reletting, and it also appeared that the land being in mortgage, and the plaintiff's interest being that of a mortgagee only, the owner of the equity of redemption had sold this right to have the tramroad to the defendant. I should further mention that the plaintiff had not even the legal title of mortgagee, for he was only the husband of the administratrix of the mortgagee, and solely interested in the money. No doubt he was entitled to call on the persons who had the legal right to do so to protect the mortgagees, but that was the extent of his right. He had brought an action of trespass against the defendant on account of this tramroad. In point of law the defendant, having lawfully got possession three years before, was continuing in possession, and the plaintiff's title, or rather that of the trustee for him, as mortgagee, was a purely legal title on the showing of the bill, and there was no impediment to an action of ejectment or an action of trespass being actually brought. In that state of circumstances, Lord Cottenham thought, and, in my judgment, was quite right in thinking, that there was no equity whatever, as shown by the bill, to interfere with the court of law, and that the case was reduced to a simple attempt to transfer the jurisdiction in ejectment from law to equity. Had the circumstances of this case been similar, and bad these pipes been laid with the consent of the tenant three years before, and used as part of the system of waterworks by the defendant during the whole of that interval, and had it been a case of legal possession liable to be displaced by ejectment, I have little doubt that I should have come to the same conclusion; but all the circumstances of the case are entirely different, and the principle upon which this ought to be dealt with must, I think, be the same as that on which the Master of the Rolls has dealt with it. Therefore, for my part, I cannot give a voice for disturbing the judgment of the Master of the Rolls.

Lord Justice JAMES.-I am of the same opinion. The defendant in this case is admittedly a trespasser, and he has committed a trespass upon the plaintiff's land without any legal justification, or any legal excuse whatever, and he proposes to continue that trespass from day to day, keeping the pipes and allowing the water to go through the pipes for the purpose of making a profit of a trade which he proposes to set up in rivalry to a trade in which the owner of the land upon which he is so committing the trespass is interested. It is said that we ought to allow this to be done; that we ought, in fact, to dismiss the plaintiff from this court, and tell him to go out of the door of this court, and to find his way to the door of another court, in which he is to bring an action for the wrong for which there is no defence whatever, and that, allowing there has been no defence to this suit, he is to bear the costs of this suit, and bring an action in a court of law. I do not know whether more than one action would be required. And then he is to come back to this court, having sucsucceeded in one action, or two actions, or perhaps three actions, all of which, on the facts proved in this case, would necessarily result in verdicts for him. Having succeeded in those actions, he is to

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come back to this court then and there, for the purpose of putting an end to that injury; he is to come back here and get a perpetual injunction, on the ground of repeated vexation and repeated actions. I do not think that there is any principle in this court which will compel us to drive the plaintiff to go through all that litigation before he he is entitled to the relief in this court which he would ultimately get, having gone through it. It is said that something of the kind was done in Deere v. Guest (1 My & Cr. 516). In Deere v. Guest, beyond all question, the ratio decidendi (and that is always to be looked at when you are referring to an authority or a decision) of Lord Cottenham, who affirmed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor was, that the plaintiff was a person out of possession, that the defendant was a person in possession, and that the bill was in substance filed to turn the defendant out of possession and to give the possession to the plaintiff, which would be strictly and simply an ejectment bill, which is not according to the practice of this court. Here there is nothing like the ouster of possession of the plaintiff. The plaintiff has been in possession and is in possession, and the defendant has been a wrongdoer, a mere trespasser he is a wrongdoer and trespasser, and proposes to continue so. The question is, whether, under those circumstances, the plaintiff has not a right to come here, and so to put an end to that continuous trespass which the defendant has begun and intends to continue, there being no wrong whatever that can be suggested, no damage, no inconvenience to the defendant which he has not an ultimate right to allege here. What is alleged on his behalf here is, that if this injunction is granted it will deprive him of a very valuable property, because it is essential to the value of his property that he should keep the plaintiff's property, which he has taken against his consent. If he had originally unconsciously taken that which was not his, when he became conscious, which was very soon, that it was not his, then he was taking that which was not his for the purpose of a profit to himself against the will of the real owner. That is taking another man's property improperly, both morally as well as legally. I am of opinion that the decision of the Master of the Rolls is quite right, and that the injunction ought to be sustained.

Lord Justice MELLISH.-I am of the same opinion. I think it is quite clear in this case that the defendant has not got into possession of any portion of real property of the plaintiff so as to make it necessary for the plaintiff to bring an action of ejectment. It is perfectly true that when a system of waterworks had bees established, and the persons constructing the waterworks have made their reservoir and laid their pipes legally all along the streets which they are supplying with the water, then the law considers the pipes so far a part of the realty that they are liable to be rated as in possession of a portion of the realty, and it may be that an ejectment may be brought against them. But in this case the waterworks had not been established at all at the time this bill was filed. All that had been done was that the defendant had entered upon the plaintiff's land, had dug a trench and put the pipes at the bottom of that trench. I doubt extremely whether those pipes had become part of the realty at all. If they had they would have become the plaintiff's property. There never was any intention to annex them to

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the soil, so as to become part of the realty. I should be inclined to think they remained as pure chattels. However that may be, it is not necessary to decide it, because what in practice the defendant has done is, that he has committed a trespass. If that had been the only thing done, it would have been right to leave the plaintiff to his action at law to recover damages, but he was threatening to continue the trespass, threatening to complete his waterworks, and use that which was really part of the plaintiff's property as his own, and make a profit by it. Then there is this further reason why there is a remedy in this court, namely, that from the peculiar circumstance of the surface of the road being dedicated as a highway, the plaintiff has not the ordinary remedy which he would have had if the defendant had gone and dug a trench and laid his pipes across the plaintiff's field, and he would have had great diffi culty in going and removing the pipes himself. Suppose that a similar trespass was committed on a man's soil while he remained in possession, and there was nothing to prevent him digging it up himself, it would be reasonable enough to allow him to remove what had been wrongly put in the soil, and to bring an action to recover damages. But in the present case it is extremely doubtful whether he could remove the pipes without rendering himself subject to be indicted by the highway board before a magistrate. In my opinion, he is entitled to be relieved from that difficulty. In some respects it is similar to the case we decided a little time ago (see Stanford v. Hurlstone, 30 L.T. Rep. N. S. 140; L. Rep. 9 Ch. 116), where a man had wrongly committed a trespass, and threatened to go on continuing to commit the trespass without a colour of an excuse for it. And we thought there was a proper remedy by injunction in this

court.

The LORD CHANCELLOR.-The appeal will be dismissed with costs.

Solicitors for the appellants, Paterson, Snow, and Burney, agents for M. and O. Daniel, Ramsgate.

Solicitors for the respondent, Wright and Pilley.

Wednesday, Feb. 11.

(Before the LORD_CHANCELLOR (Selborne) and the LORDS JUSTICES.)

LYALL v. Weldhen.

Practice-Transfer of cause-Costs. Where the plaintiff in a suit relating to the same matter, with respect to which a previous suit was existing in another branch of the court, offered (in answer to a notice of motion for a transfer of the second suit to the branch of the court to which the first suit was attached) to consent to the transfer if the costs were made costs in the cause, which offer the plaintiffs in the first suit refused, it was ordered that the costs up to the time of the offer should be costs in the cause, and that the plaintiff in the first suit should pay the subsequent costs of the transfer.

ORIGINAL motion.

Under the circumstances stated in the above head-note, the plaintiff in the first suit now moved that the second suit should be transferred from the court of the Master of the Rolls to that of Hall, V.C., to which the first suit was attached.

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