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Show RIGHTS OF LANDOWNERS IN DIFFUSED SURFACE WATERS 547 with its essential qualification was not changed by the act of 1915,^ and it became the settled law in Texas.61 To be entitled to have such water flow from one's land onto lower property, therefore, the water must follow its usual course and run in its natural quantities.62 Common Enemy Rule The strict common enemy rule is exemplified by the following statement of the Washington Supreme Court in a 1963 case: "* * * surface waters are to be regarded as outlaw or common enemy waters, against which every proprietor of land may defend himself even to the consequent injury of others."63 But this rule has been modified in various ways by most of the States that still adhere to some version of it.64 Common Enemy and/or Common Law Rules This subtitle is so worded as to emphasize that in some States the controlling decisions recognized no distinctions between the common enemy and common law rules but used the terms interchangeably, whereas others viewed the two rules as having little or no relation to each other. Not distinguished. -Thus, the Montana Supreme Court purported to adopt the "common-law rule" by which liability for the obstruction of diffused surface waters is measured, viz.: The lower landowner owes no duty to the upper landowner to refrain from obstructing the flow upon his land; each may appropriate all the diffused surface water that falls upon his premises; and one is under no obligation to receive from the other the flow of any such water, but may in the ordinary prosecution of his business and the improvement of his premises, by embankments or otherwise, prevent any portion of the diffused surface water from flowing upon his land. Each landowner, therefore, has the right to protect his land from the flow of diffused surface water.65 Bouldin, V. W., "Rights in Diffused Surface Water in Texas," Proc, Water Law Conference, Univ. of Tex., p. 5, 13-14 (1955), includes a summary of principles followed in the Texas cases to the date of presentation since Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 7589a (1954) was enacted and Miller v. Letzerich, supra, was decided. ™Higgins v. Spear, 118 Tex. 310, 313,15 S.W. (2d) 1010 (1929). 61 Bunch v. Thomas, 121 Tex. 225, 229,49 S.W. (2d) 421 (1932); Tennyson v. Green, 111 S.W. (2d) 179,181 (Tex. Civ. App. 1948, error refused n.r.e.). "Samples v. Buckman, 246 S.W. (2d) 283, 285 (Tex. Civ. App. 1951, error refused). "Kelly v. Gifford, 63 Wash. (2d) 221, 222, 386 Pac. (2d) 415, 416 (1963). But in another 1963 case, the Washington court added a modification of this strict common enemy rule, as discussed at note 75 infra. 64 See "Modifications of Civil Law and Common Enemy or Common Law Rules," infra. 6SLe Munyon v. Gallatin Valley R.R., 60 Mont. 517, 523-525, 199 Pac. 915 (1921); Tillinger v. Frisbie, 138 Mont. 60, 353 Pac. (2d) 645, 646-647 (1960). In the latter case, the court added, 353 Pac. (2d) at 647, that: "The case of O'Hare v. Johnson, 116 Mont. 410,153 Pac. (2d) 888 [1944] did not change this rule in Montana. That case was an injunction suit brought to restrain a landowner from diverting surplus |