## Facts

- Henderson County landowners alleged that a nearby bottled-water company began pumping approximately 90,000 gallons of groundwater per day, seven days a week, from land near their property.
- The landowners claimed their domestic wells were severely depleted soon after the pumping began.
- They sought injunctive relief and damages, asserting nuisance, negligence, gross negligence, and malice.
- The defendant invoked Texas’s common-law rule of capture, which generally allows a landowner to pump groundwater without liability to neighbors whose wells are depleted, subject to limited exceptions.
- In the Texas Supreme Court, the landowners waived any contention that their claims fit within existing exceptions and argued only that the rule of capture should be abandoned.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas should abandon the common-law rule of capture for groundwater and adopt a reasonable-use standard that would impose liability for “unreasonable” pumping that depletes neighboring wells.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the bottled-water company.
- The Court declined to abandon the rule of capture and refused to adopt a reasonable-use regime through judicial decision.
- The Court reasoned that the requested change was broad and policy-laden and was better left to legislative action and existing regulatory mechanisms.

## Legal Principles

- Under Texas’s rule of capture, a landowner may pump as much groundwater as desired, without liability to neighbors for well depletion, subject to limited exceptions.
- Courts should be cautious about replacing entrenched common-law groundwater doctrines with a new liability framework when the change would require wide-ranging policy judgments.
- Groundwater allocation and conservation are primarily matters for legislative and regulatory resolution rather than wholesale judicial revision of groundwater rights.

## Conclusion

The court left the rule of capture in place and held that, absent an applicable exception or legislative reform, a landowner generally is not liable for pumping groundwater that depletes neighboring wells, even when the pumping is large-scale and commercial.


Sipriano v. Great Spring Waters of Am., Inc., 1 S.W.3d 75 (Tex. 1999)