Rule in Rylands v Fletcher Flashcards
(28 cards)
Introduction
“Established in Rylands v Fletcher”- A tort to land
Strict liability for an escape from land?
or “a sub-species of nuisance”, Transco PLC v Stockport MBC [2004] per Lord Bingham?
3 Key cases:
-Rylands v Fletcher [1868]
-Cambridge Water Co Ltd v Eastern
-Counties Leather plc [1994]
Transco v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council [2003]
Rylands v Fletcher Case
-The claimants were tenants operating a mine on their land, while the defendants were neighboring mill owners who hired independent contractors to construct a reservoir on their land. The contractors discovered disused coal mine shafts on the defendants’ land which led to the claimant’s mine beneath the reservoir, but assumed they were sealed and took no action.
-When the reservoir was filled, the pressure caused water to burst through the shafts, flooding the claimants’ mine.
The Rule
“A person who, for his own purposes, brings on his land, and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it at his peril, and if he does not do so, he is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape”, Rylands v Fletcher (1865) 3 H & C 774 per Blackburn J (Court of Exchequer Chamber)
Nature of the duty
D has an absolute duty to keep the thing on their land at their peril?
ADDED REQUIREMENT
Added the requirement that the defendant’s use of his land should be non-natural – the owners could lawfully have used the land for any purpose for which it might ordinarily be used, per Lord Cairns – if laws of nature had led to water passing onto p’s land, p could not have complained
The Simplified Rule
There are 4 requirements for establishing liability under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher.
3 of the requirements derive from Rylands itself:
1) D brings on their land, for D’s own purposes, something likely to do mischief
2) That thing escapes
3)The use of the land was non-natural.
FACTORS:
D brings on their land, for D’s own purposes, something likely to do mischief
- Accumulation means that the thing must have been brought onto the land and ‘kept’ there.
- So, the rule only applies to things which are artificially brought onto the land and not things which are there naturally.
e.g., reservoir vs lake
Examples:
Water - Smith v Kenrick and Ellison v Ministry of Defence (if water comes on your land naturally then nothing will happen)
Weathered land – Leakey v National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty (weathered land is in nuisance)
… something likely to do mischief
“…Under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher that the thing which the defendant has brought on his land should be ‘something which … will naturally do mischief if it escapes out of his land,’ ‘something dangerous…’, ‘anything which, if it should escape, may cause damage to his neighbour.’
Examples of things that are likely to cause mischief
Examples of things likely to do mischief:
-Noxious fumes – West Bristol Tramways Co [1908]
-Gas – Batchellor v Tunbridge Wells Gas Co [1901]
-Enormous mass of rubbish - Attorney General v Cory Bros & Co Ltd [1921] 1 AC 521
-Electricity – National Telephone Co v Baker [1893]
-Part of a fairground ride – Hale v Jennings [1938]
-Even a flagpole – Shiffman v Order of St John [1936]
Threash hold
High Threshold
.”..I do not think the mischief or danger test should be at all easily satisfied. It must be shown that the defendant has done something which he recognised, or judged by the standards appropriate at the relevant place and time, he ought reasonably to have recognised, as giving rise to an exceptionally high risk of danger or mischief if there should be an escape, however unlikely an escape may have been thought to be.”
Per Lord Bingham in Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council [2004] 2 AC 1
Must be an Escape
Read v Lyons & Co Ltd.
-Whilst she was inspecting the factory, an artillery shell exploded and the explosion killed a man and injured some other people, including herself.
- no escape, no negligence, no liability
—–because it stayed confined to the defendant’s land
“Escape means escape from a place where the defendant has occupation of or control over land to a place which is outside his occupation or control”, per Viscount Simons
Also, Rylands v Fletcher is a tort to land not to injury…she got hurt and so, that is not covered in Rylands v Flethcer.
FACTORS:
Non-natural use
Rylands v Fletcher- “if the defendants … had desired to use it for any purpose which I may term a non-natural use … then it appears to me that that which the defendants were doing they were doing at their own peril.” Per Lord Cairns
Read v Lyons & Co Ltd.
The use of land as a munitions factory was held to be a natural use during wartime.
Rainham Chemical Words Ltd v Belvedere Fish Guano Co Ltd
In the case of Rainham, chemical words limited, this same use of land was considered to be non-natural during peacetime.
Rickards v Lothian
“some special use bringing with it increased danger to others, and must not merely be the ordinary use of the land or such use as is proper for the general benefit of the community”, per Lord Moulton
Cambridge Water v Eastern Counties Leather
“the storage of substantial quantities of chemicals on industrial premises should be regarded as an almost classic case of non-natural use, notwithstanding any benefit to the community
FOURTH FACTOR
CAUSES FORESEEABLE DAMAGE OF THE RELEVANT TYPE
Cambridge Water v Eastern Counties Leather
“…a reasonable supervisor at ECL would not have foreseen…that such repeated spillages of small quantities of solvent would lead to any environmental hazard or damage…Even if he had foreseen that solvent might enter the acquifer, he would not have foreseen that such quantities would produce any sensible effect upon water taken down-catchment, or would otherwise be material or deserve the description of pollution…The only harm that could have been foreseen from a spillage was that somebody might have been overcome by fumes from a spillage of a significant quantity.”
Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
“It must be shown that the defendant has done something which he recognised, or judged by the standards appropriate at the relevant place and time, he ought reasonably to have recognised, as giving rise to an exceptionally high risk of danger or mischief if there should be an escape, however unlikely an escape may have been thought to be.”
per Lord Hoffman, [33]
“The defendant will be liable even if he could not reasonably have foreseen that there would be an escape”
Damage – Not Personal Injury
“The rule in Rylands v Fletcher is a sub-species of nuisance … the claim cannot include a claim for death or personal injury, since such a claim does not relate to any right in or enjoyment of land … It is … clear from Lord Macmillan’s opinion inRead[v J Lyons and Co ]… that he regarded a personal injury claim as outside the scope of the rule, and his approach is in my opinion strongly fortified by the decisions of the House inCambridge Water…andHunter v Canary Wharf Ltd…in each of which nuisance was identified as a tort directed, and directed only, to the protection of interests in land.”
Defences: Acts of God
Tennent v Early of Glasgow (1864)
- an escape caused, through natural causes and without human intervention, in “circumstances which no human foresight can provide against and of which human prudence is not bound to recognise the possibility.”
Nichols v Marsland
-The defendant had created a series of ornamental lakes by damming a natural stream on their land.
-Exceptionally heavy rain — described as a violent storm not seen in living memory — caused the banks to burst.
-The water escaped and damaged bridges and adjoining land owned by the claimant.
Defence applied
