Support, to support a rule or order is to argue in answer to the arguments of the party who has shown cause against a rule or order nisi.
The help which every landowner receives at the boundary of his land from his neighbour's land, which lies close to his and prevents its falling in and crumbling away, as it would do if his neighbour dug away the surface of his land to the very edge, Goddard on Easements. The right of an owner to the support of surface in its natural position is a presumption of Common Law and not part of a grant of mines or power to work the same, and a power to let down the surface must be expressly granted in a lease, Warwickshire Coal Company v. Coventry Corporation, 1934 Ch 488. As to the right of support for buildings, see, further, the leading case of Dalton v. Angus, (1881) 6 App Cas 740, in which it was held by the House of Lords that there is natural right to lateral support for buildings. This is an easement which may be acquired by twenty years' uninterrupted, peaceable, and open enjoyment of that building. In the case of the removal of support to the surface by mining, the cause of action appears to be the damage as and when it occurs, and the Statute of Limitations is no bar however long since the cause of damage may have occurred, but depreciation in selling value caused by apprehension of future is chief gives no cause of action and the risk of future subsidence must not be taken into account, West Leigh Colliery v. Tunnicliffe & Hampson, 1908 AC 27.
The right to support does not extend to support by underground percolating waters; abstracting these so as to let down the surface is damnum absque injuria: see Acton v. Burnell, (1843) 12 M&W 324.
The word 'support' will have to mean sustenance or maintenance, Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Children Book Trust, AIR 1992 SC 1456: (1992) 3 SCC 390. [Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 (66 of 1957), s. 115(4)(a), proviso]