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“ He had no business to transact with the plaintiff, and the vessel was not going to the pier for freight; so that all pretence of a license utterly fails.
That fact alone, however, under the circumstances of this case, might not perhaps be sufficient to justify or excuse the defendants for cutting the hawser. Every man is bound by law so to use his own property as not to injure the property of another; and, unless the defendants are brought within the fair operation of that rule, they cannot be justified or excused. But that rule is applicable to the plaintiffs as well as to the defendants ”

“ Bridge piers and landing places, as well as wharves and permanent piers, are frequently constructed by the riparian proprietor on the shores of navigable rivers, bays, and arms of the sea, as well as on the lakes; and where they conform to the regulations of the State, and do not extend below low-water mark, it has never been held that they were a nuisance, unless it appeared that they were an obstruction to the paramount right of navigation. Whether a nuisance or not is a question of fact ”

“ Unless it be true, that every landing place and bridge pier erected on the shore of navigable waters without a special authority from the legislature, is necessarily a nuisance, it is a sufficient answer to the first position of the plaintiffs to say, that there was not a particle of evidence in the case to support the theory of fact on which the proposition is based. All that appeared upon the subject in the court below was, that the bridge pier in question extended several hundred feet into the waters of the lake ”