## Facts

- Willie and Arlene Gilbert owned “Howard’s Mill,” a water-powered gristmill on Kirkland’s Creek, a non-navigable stream in Early County, Georgia.
- The mill operation depended on the creek’s flow and included a roughly 40-acre millpond used for recreation and rental boats.
- Several upstream riparian landowners installed irrigation systems and withdrew creek water for agricultural irrigation beginning in the mid-1970s.
- The Gilberts sued for injunctive relief and damages, alleging the irrigation withdrawals were a nuisance and trespass due to diminished downstream flow.
- After a hearing, additional upstream irrigators were added as defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether upstream riparian withdrawals for irrigation could be deemed a diversion, trespass, nuisance, and unreasonable use as a matter of law, supporting summary judgment and a permanent injunction.
2. Whether Georgia riparian rights for non-navigable streams are governed by strict natural-flow protection or a modified reasonable-use doctrine.

## Decision

- The Georgia Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s summary judgment rulings on liability and the injunction and remanded.
- The court rejected treating irrigation withdrawals as unlawful per se under a strict natural-flow approach.
- The court adopted a modified riparian reasonable-use doctrine for non-navigable watercourses.
- Because reasonableness depends on context and competing needs, the defendants’ use could not be declared unreasonable as a matter of law on summary judgment.

## Legal Principles

- Riparian owners on a non-navigable stream have correlative, co-equal rights to make reasonable use of the water.
- A riparian use may be permissible even if it causes some diminution of natural flow, so long as the use is reasonable under all the circumstances.
- Irrigation is not automatically an unlawful diversion; legality turns on a fact-based reasonableness determination.
- Whether a riparian use is reasonable ordinarily presents fact questions requiring consideration of the utility of the use, the extent of withdrawal, and the effect on other riparians.

## Conclusion

The court held that Georgia law permits upstream irrigation on a non-navigable stream if the use is reasonable in light of all circumstances, and it reversed summary judgment and an injunction that had treated diminished downstream flow as automatically unlawful.


Pyle v. Gilbert, 245 Ga. 403, 265 S.E.2d 584 (1980)