Lecture notes
Nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher Liability Lecture notes
- Module
- Tort Law (LG2008)
- Institution
- City University (City)
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Nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher Liability - Part ILecture 13
Introduction
Nuisance is one of the oldest torts.
o Just because case law is old does not mean it is not important; it could actually so
to show how permanent/consistent the case law has been
There are two main forms of nuisance claims in modern law: private and public.
o A lot that is said in private nuisance will also apply to public nuisance
There is debate about whether Rylands v Fletcher liability is in fact a part of nuisance.
o However, even the people who say it is not the same as the tort of nuisance still
teach it alongside nuisance because even if they do not agree, there are others who
think it is. Therefore, when you are teaching you have to consider that debate and
be consistent with others so students can decide whether they think it should be a
part of it or not
Private Nuisance: Definition and Proof:
Read v Lyons [1945] KB 216 per Scott LJ defined private nuisance:
o ‘... an unlawful interference with a person’s use or enjoyment of his land, or some
right over, or in connection with, that land’.
C must prove that there was:
o an unreasonable interference;
nuisance requires personal unlawful interference = the interference needs
to be unreasonable, C cannot be just annoyance; it’s for the law to
determine the interference is unreasonable
o with C’s use or enjoyment of his or her land;
limits number of potential C in this area; if you don’t own any land or
have any land rights then you cannot sue for nuisance
if you have rights, that it determined by land law which is a completely
separate area of law and irrelevant to us
o for which D is responsible.
This isn’t stated in the definition above but it is quite obvious this must be
done because if D is not responsible then the law cannot apply to them
ways to proof D is responsible:
1. creating the interference
2. we will also see another possibility later one
Private Nuisance: Proving an Unreasonable Interference:
Hunter v Canary Wharf [1997] AC 655, 695 per Lord Lloyd:
‘Private nuisances are of three kinds.
o They are (1) nuisance by encroachment (invasion) on a neighbour's land;
Can be best explained by tree branches: if they are growing under or
over a fence into someone else’s land
o (2) nuisance by direct physical injury to a neighbour's land; and
Example of that could be pollution from a factory physically
damaging someone’s building on their (the injured persons) land
, o (3) nuisance by interference with a neighbour's quiet enjoyment of his land’.
Most common way people use nuisance
‘quiet enjoyment’ is not just about noise; he is also talking about the
right to enjoy land peacefully
Example of this could be noise or always vibrations (building work
nearby), smells, mosquitoes coming from neighbor’s land etc.
o LL making point that nuisances can occur in different ways; even if you are
looking at only private nuisance
English law does not recognise nuisance by overlooking: see Fearn v Tate Gallery
Board of Trustees [2020] EWCA Civ 104.
o This case is a recommended reading in this area of law but it is not an
essential reading
o This case establishes if the alleged nuisance is just people looking into your
property, that isn’t something actionable in the law of nuisance
o COA said never been a previous case where a C sued for this sort of interference.
They said what the C were trying to do is protect their rights to privacy, which is
protected by article 8. COA said if parliament wants to protect people’s privacy in
relation to this particular case then it could. But it would be inappropriate to
develop the law of tort for nuisance to protect privacy in that respect.
o COA wasn’t saying they are changing law, they were saying they weren’t willing
to develop it in this area
o Therefore, nuisance is not subjective, not just because it is annoying to you will
the courts find it annoying too
o The courts were not saying that tort law should NEVER change to be consistent
with human rights act. They were just saying the law in nuisance didn’t need to
change
Private Nuisance: Reasonable User:
Cambridge Water Co v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 2 AC 264:
• Reasonable user v unreasonable user
• Lord Golf pointed out in this case originally the balance test for what is reasonable v
unreasonable
• Balancing exercise
• Question of balance is what the courts use to work out if an interference
is unreasonable
• Lord Golf said that liability for private nuisance has to be kept under control
by the principle of unreasonable user.
• His point is that given the society which we live we got to expect to put up
with a certain amount of interference – balance exercise if his point.
You will see in case law that courts use the term ‘reasonable user’. What they mean by
that is that the interference is not unreasonable and if they say someone is an
unreasonable user of their land, they mean that they are reasonably inferring with the
neighbors use of enjoyment of land by whatever they are doing in their own land.
Factors to determine whether interference amounts to ‘unreasonable user’:
, 1. Locality of the alleged nuisance – there is one exception to this which is whether the
alleged nuisance is physical damage to someone’s land/building/vegetation
a. Sturges v Bridgman (1879) LR 11 CH D 852
i. Courts said that what constitutes a nuisance was to be decided on a case
to case basis, and it is necessary to consider the particular locality itself.
What is not a nuisance in one area may well be a nuisance in another and
vice versa. What would be a nuisance in Bellgrove Sqaure may not be a
nuisance in other areas like Central London.
ii. Lord is saying whether something is an unreasonable interference
depends on the keeping/standard of that neighborhood. The courts
are looking at the character of the neighbor hood
iii. If you live in a street that’s also dirty, a scum etc. some nuisance may not
be unreasonable there because it is expected as opposed to living in a high
end, well kept neighborhood.
b. St Helens Smelting Co v Tipping (1865) 11 HL Cas 642
i. This case is the reason for the exception of nuisance being physical
damage
ii. Case establishes that whenever there is a physical interference with
land and land is physically being damaged then the character of the
neighborhood/anything else is NOT relevant
iii. The interference is automatically unreasonable if physical damage is
involved
1. Courts do not give a reason for this; they just say it is
automatically unreasonable. This makes the law start forward but
not necessarily fair as they do not give a reason why physical
damage is bound to be unreasonable.
iv. Case is about pollution from a factory which was damaging someone’s
estate. Court said that interference was unreasonable simply because there
was physical damage to the persons estate
c. Coventry v Lawrence [2014] UKSC 13
i. Case to do with the relevance of planning permission
ii. Before this case there was a lot of confusion in academia whether planning
permission was granted by local authority would be relevant in nuisance
cases
iii. Before this case D’s would argue that what they were giving permission
by local authority for what they were doing in the neighborhood that cause
someone else nuisance
iv. There were many different issues in this case but the one concerned with
private nuisance was noise coming from a motor stadium
v. But the case law made it clear that it was for a court to determine
whether or not an interference is unreasonable
vi. Supreme court in this case made it clear that it was an issue for the
court NOT the local counsel to decide and that planning permission isn’t
something courts should consider as relevant when trying to determine the
nuisance in question because even though a counsel is aware when
deciding to grant planning permission party A that if Party B is annoyed at
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