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Law of Tort notes on Private Nuisance
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Full Law of Tort notes on Private Nuisance
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Private Nuisance Private nuisance is concerned with protecting the rights of an occupier in respect of
unreasonable interference with the enjoyment or use of his land.
The parties to an action in private nuisance are generally neighbours in the popular sense of
the word and the courts undertake a balancing exercise between the competing rights of
land owner to use his land as he chooses and the right of the neighbour not to have his use
or enjoyment of land interfered with.
Private nuisance is not actionable per se
Definitions:
Read V Lyons
- ‘’...an unlawful interference with a person’s use or enjoyment of his land or some right
over, or in connection with that land.’’
Khorasandijan V Bush
- ‘‘the essence of nuisance is a condition or activity which unduly interferes with the
claimant’s use or enjoyment of land.’’
Elements of the action:
1. An ‘interference’ causing damage to the claimant’s land or to the use and enjoyment of that
land
2. ‘Unreasonable user’ by the defendant of his/her land
Four other factors:
a. Does the claimant have capacity to sue?
b. Can the defendant be liable?
c. Any defences?
d. What remedies?
1) An Interference:
There must be a relevant interference with the claimant’s use and enjoyment of their land.
Nuisance protects proprietary or possessory interests in land and not personal interests
Personal injury = NOT actionable in private nuisance
Four types of interference:
- Physical damage (St Helen’s Smelting v Tipping)
- Amenity nuisance (Hunter v Canary Wharf)
- Interference with servitudes
- Encroachment nuisances
An interference affecting claimant’s interest in land:
Hunter v Canary Wharf (690 claims were made against Canary Wharf ltd. The claimants lived
in the Isle of Dogs and complained that the erection of the Canary Wharf Tower interfered
with their television reception. In addition, a second action against London Docklands
Development Corporation involved 513 claims for damages in respect of excessive amounts
of dust created during the construction of the tower. Some of the claimants were owners or
tenants of properties, but many of the claimants had no proprietary interest in lane at all.
, Some were children living with parents, some were relations or lodgers with use of a room
and some were spouses of the tenant or owner of the property. The two issues the House of
Lords were required to consider were:
1. Whether interference with television reception was capable of giving rise to an
actionable nuisance
2. Whether an interest in property was required to bring an action in
It was held that:
1. There is no right of action in nuisance for interference with the television reception.
2. An interest in property is required to bring an action in nuisance. Khorasanjian v
Bush overruled in so far as it holds that a mere licensee can sue in private nuisance).
Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan BC (The defendant council were responsible for the
maintenance of the pipe work supplying water to a block of flats. A leak developed which
was undetected for some time. The water collected at an embankment which housed the
claimant’s high pressure gas main. The water caused the embankment to collapse and left
the gas main exposed and unsupported. This was a serious and immediate risk and the
claimant took action to avoid the potential danger. They then sought to recover the cost of
the remedial works under the principle established in Rylands v Fletcher. The defendant was
not liable. The council’s use of land was not a non-natural use).
- No damages for death or personal injury available in a nuisance action
An ‘interference’ is judges objectively, rather than by subjective standards
- claimant has to show that ordinary, reasonable person would find the defendant’s
activity interfered with their use and enjoyment of property
Walter v Selfe (is the interference‘…materially interfering with the ordinary comfort
physically of human existence, not merely according to elegant or dainty modes and habits
of living, but according to plain and sober and simple notions among English people.’)
The ‘interference’ must emanate from the defendant’s land:
Hunter V Canary Wharf
- Per Lord Goff: ‘…for an action in private nuisance to lie in respect of interference
with the plaintiff’s enjoyment of his land, it will generally arise from something
emanating from the defendant’s land. Such an emanation may take many forms
– noise, dirt, fumes, a noxious smell, vibrations, and suchlike.’
Exceptions:
Thompson-Schwab v Costaki (The sight of prostitutes and their clients entering and leaving
neighbouring premises were held to amount to an actionable nuisance as the activity was
considered offensive in itself. There was no need to demonstrate that the activities were
noisy).
- Per Lord Goff: ‘Occasionally activities on the defendant’s land are in themselves
so offensive to neighbours as to constitute an actionable nuisance, as in
Thompson-Schwab v Costaki…Such cases must however be relatively rare.’
Halsey v Esso Petroleum (From the defendant’s land emanated acid smuts which damaged
the claimant’s car. Claim succeeded, Special damage requirement satisfied and Damages
may include those for inconvenience and pure economic loss).
The ‘interference’ must be reasonably foreseeable:
More relevant where damages sought for past interferences than where injunction sought
to stop continuing interference
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