Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/166

 158 FEDERAL REPORTER. �win V. Dixon, 9 How. 10-25. AU the special injury lie lias sustained has been on account of the floating of loose logs in the river, and the action of the defendant, the Chippewa River Improvement and Log Driving Company, in combina- tion with the other defendant, in erecting a dam on said river at Little Falls, some 50 to 75 miles above Eau Claire, the head of steamboat navigation, by which the defendants have held back the water to euch an extent, from five to eight days at a time, on two different occasions, as to materially obstruct the navigation of the river below Eau Claire, and hinder and retard the plaintiff in the running of his boats. �But if the defendants have the legal right to float logs in the river, and to dam the river for that purpose, then the plaintiff has not set out enough to enable him to maintain a bill in equity for a perpetuai injunction. �That the defendants, in common with the public, have the right to float logs down the Chippewa and other rivers and streams in the lumbering portions of the state seems to me incontestable; and if so, then equity will not grant relief against the use of the river for such purpose, although the right may be so exercised on occasions as to cause damage to individuals engaged in other departments of commerce. Equity will foUow the law and not go in opposition to it. And if there happen, as there may, an abuse of the legal right, equity will not interfere to forfeit or crush out the right, but will turn the injured party over to his action at law for dam- ages. �This is the only praeticable course; for the manner iu which the river shall be used by these several interests can- not, from the nature of things, be regulated by injunction. AU a court of chancery could do, if anything, would be just what the plaintiff asks for in this case — enjoin and prohibit the use of the river for the purpose of floating logs, the use of the improvements placed in the river to faoilitate that interest, and compel them to be taken out; which would amount to a complete deniai of the right, and the forfeiture of an immense property, and a vast commercial interest. Ifc cannot by a decree regulate the use of these improvements, ��� �