John Godfrey Spragge (September 6, 1806 – April 20, 1884) was a Canadian

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

and

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

. Born in

New Cross New Cross is an area in south east London, England, south-east of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Lewisham and the SE14 postcode district. New Cross is near St Johns, Telegraph Hill, Nunhead, Peckham, Brockley, Deptford and Greenwich, ...

Lewisham Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified i ...

, England, he emigrated to

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the ...

in 1820 with his father, Joseph Spragge. He was called to the bar of Upper Canada in 1828 and practised law in York (now Toronto). In May 1881, he was appointed chief justice of the

Court of Appeal for Ontario The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto, also the seat of the Law Societ ...

(the title was changed later in the year to chief justice of Ontario). He served until his death in 1884. Spragge as a justice on

Ontario Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto, also the seat of the Law Societ ...

presided over ''

McLaren v Caldwell ''McLaren v Caldwell'' was a landmark decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that upheld provincial jurisdiction in matters of a local or private nature, as well as over property and civil rights. It has been described as "a decis ...

'' where he held that Ontario law made all streams, whether naturally or artificially floatable, public waterways. On appeal to the

Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...

, the Court of Appeal's decision was reversed on the grounds that: the streams in question were not floatable without the aid of artificial improvements, the appellant had at common law the exclusive right to use his property as he pleased, and to prevent respondents from using as a highway the stream in question where it flowed through appellant’s private property, as held in the 1863 decision in ''Boale v. Dickson'', the Ontario statute in question extends only to such streams as would, in their natural state, without improvements, during

freshet The term ''freshet'' is most commonly used to describe a spring thaw resulting from snow and ice melt in rivers located in upper North America. A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting in significant in ...

s, permit saw logs, timber, etc., to be floated down them.

References

1806 births 1884 deaths English expatriates in Canada Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario People from New Cross {{Canada-law-bio-stub