Incorporating Human Harm into the No-Injury Rule

This essay argues that the no-injury rule should prevent challenges to water rights that would result in human harm, not only, material injury to other water rights. Colorado water courts are at averse to making decisions based on public policy, but there is enough statutory judicial, and historical precedent to vitiate this new injury standard. A more compassionate no-injury rule supports the fundamental concepts of maximum utilization and optimum use: the first by creating a presumption against concentration of use; and the second by examining a water transfer's effect on human flourishing alongside its economic and environmental impact.