Rylands v Fletcher Flashcards
Rylands v Fletcher
- The defendant had not been negligent as he did not know about the shafts.
- He could not be vicariously liable as the contractors were not employees.
- There could be no claim in trespass to land, because the damge was not direct and immediate. Nuisance did not apply to a one-off accident.
- Blackburn J set out the principle: the person who for his own purposes brings onto land and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do so, prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape.
- Lord Cairns: added the stipulation that the defendant must be carrying out a ‘non-natural’ use of the land.
> Non-natural use was interpreted as something not naturally there. - The law of tort is predominantly fault-based which means that some blame must be attached to someone.
> The defendant can be liable for damage even though they did not know that there was a risk of damage or could not have prevented the damage. - Escape is taken to mean: ‘an escape from a place where the defendant is in occupation or control over land to a place which is outside his occupation or control’.
> ‘Escape’ meant that the release of the dangerous thing had to be accidental.
> There has been some debate as to whether intentionally releasing something from one’s land is capable of being an escape and, therefore, falling within Rylands.
Cambridge Water v Eastern Counties Leather
- An element of fault has been introduced more recently, based on the type of harm being reasonably foreseeable to the defendant.
> There was no liability because the defendant could not have foreseen the seepage. - Ian Kennedy J found at first instance that the storage of chemicals by a tanning firm in an industrial village was a natural use of land.
> The court said that the storage of substantial quantities of chemicals on industrial premises was an ‘almost classic case of non-natural use, even in an industrial estate’.
> The fact that the chemical in question was commonly used in that industry and that the defendant’s factory benefited the local community was not enough to make the use of the land natural. - Not clear if a person who is not an occupier of land close to the escape can obtain damages for personal injuries under this tort.
> It was said that the rule in Rylands v Fletcher is an offshoot or variety of nuisance.
> Therefore, according to Hunter v Canary Wharf, an interest in land is a prerequisite for beginning a claim.
Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
- The ‘likely to do mischief’ test was changed into a foreseeability test.
> A defendant will not incur liability if they could not have foreseen a high risk of danger if the thing escaped from their land.
> Rule in Rylands v Fletcher should be strict, it should be a case of whether the defendant could or should have recognised (foreseen) that a thing would give rise to an exceptionally high risk of danger if it escaped. - Does not expressly deal with the issue of who can sue, but the court stated that Rylands v Fletcher is an aspect of nuisance, which suggests that an interest in land is needed to bring it into line with Hunter v Canary Wharf.
- Personal injury cannot be claimed.
> According to Lord Hoffman in Hunter v Canary Wharf, nuisance protects land or the use of land. Therefore, damages for personal injury per se would not be recoverable in either nuisance or under Rylands v Fletcher. - Lordships contended that it was a subset of nuisance and should remain that way; it should not beincorporated into either the tort of nuisance or the tort of negligence.
> Should keep the tort alive as there are instances where it should be used to provide the claimant a remedy.
> Different tests are applied to prove the tort (one-off accident VS element of duration). - The House of Lords held stated that the piping of a water supply, a routine function that could not be seen as creating any special hazard, was an ordinary use of the council’s land.
> Although water in large quantities can be dangerous, that is not true of water in ordinary domestic amounts, and there is nothing extraordinary or unusual in providing a water supply to residential premises. - Lord Bingham explained that the test for deciding if something was dangerous was a strict one.
> The claimant had to show that the defendant had brought or accumulated on the land something that they recognised or ought to have recognised would lead to an exceptionally high risk of danger or ‘mischief’ if the thing escaped.
> If the requirement was fulfilled, it did not matter that the risk of an escape occurring was low.
Weller v Foot and Mouth Disease Research Institute
Read v Lyons
Claimant must have an interest in the land affected by the escape, even though the position was unclear.
Weller: the claimant did not succeed in their claim as they did not have an interest in the land affected by the foot and mouth disease virus that escaped from their research centre.
Read:
> It was said that in obiter dicta that the claimant must be an occupier.
> The defendant would be the person from whose land the ‘thing’ escaped, even if that person were only a licensee (someone without an interest in the land).
> Doubts were raised about whether the rule of escape could be used.
» The claim failed because even though explosives are highly dangerous, there had been no escape, as the shell had not left the defendant’s property.
Hale v Jennings Bros
- The claimant and the defendant do not have to own or occupy separate areas of land.
> There was liability although both parties occupied same ground when the claimant was hit by a chair that had broken loose from the defendant’s fairground ride. - A claim for personal injuries was allowed.
British Celanese v Hunt
- The person from whose control the ‘thing’ escaped would be liable.
- The area was an industrial one, so the defendants escaped liability.
> The use of the land was ‘ordinary’ in the context of industry as well as being for the benefit of the community.
Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd
Obiter: duration is not a factor that is vital to the tort of nuisance.
Crown River Cruises Ltd v kimbolton Fireworks Ltd
Rigby v Chief Constable of Northamptonshire
Crown River: The courts discussed the intentional escape of something that has a non-natural use.
> The escape need not be from land.
» Rylands v Fletcher could be extended to cover intentional releases of dangerous things, although the defendants in the case were held not liable under the rule.
» Possibly because the boats moored and so equated to land.
> Damage must be foreseeable and not too remote, apply the Wagon Mound test of foreseeability to both nuisance and Rylands.
> House of Lords saw no need to develop the law because environmental protection was something that Parliament was already looking at.
Rigby: The court held that where direct harm had been caused by an intentional act, an action in the tortof trespass would be more appropriate.
Giles v Walker
Pontardawe Rural District Council v Moore-Gwyn
No liability for an escape of things naturally on the land.
Giles: thistles
Pontardawe: rocks that fall because of weathering
Musgrove v Pandelis
Keeping a car in a garage with a full tank of petrol was held to be non-natural use. This would probably not be the decision today, as the ownership of cars is much more commonplace.
Rickards v Lothian
- Lord Moulton set out a definition of ‘non-natural use’: it must be some special use bringing with it increased danger to others, and must not merely be the ordinary use of land or such use as is proper for the general benefit of the community.
- The defendant will not be liable if the escape is the result of an unforeseeable act of a third party, over whom the defendant has no control or who is not acting under the defendant’s instructions.
> The defendant has no liability as he was using the property for its ordinary purpose and the damage had been caused by a stranger.
Mason v Levy Auto Parts of Englands
Concept of non-natural use was equated with abnormal risk.
The defendants were held liable as the storage of the materials amounted to a non-natural use of the land.
In deciding that this was non-natural user, the court held that the relevant matters to consider were:
> The quantities of combustible (accumulated) material
> The way in which it was stored
> The character of the neighbourhood
LMS International Ltd v Styrene Packaging and Insulation
Concept of non-natural use equated with abnormal risk.
Quantities, way in which it was stored, character of the neighbourhood: the way in which the product was stored and manufactured invoved a ‘very real risk’ that a fire would spread to neighbouring premises - flammable material was stored near to machinery which got very hot, storage was therefore non-natural and it was foreseeable it could catch fire.
The court approved Transco and restated the criteria:
> Defendant must have brought on something likely to do mischief.
> Defendant’s action must arise from a non-natural use of land.
> The damage must be foreseeable.
Ellison v Ministry of Defence
Action in nuisance failed partly because the damage was unforeseeable but chiefly because the construction was regarded as a reasonable use of the defendant’s land.
Action in Rylands v Fletcher failed because the rainwater had not been brought onto or stored on the land, its presence was not a non-natural use.
Stannard (t/a Wyvern Tyres) v Gore
- Most recent interpretation of ‘non-natural’ use.
> The court held that keeping around 3000 tyres on land was natural use of the land, even though the capacity of a typical storage facility was exceeded and the stacking of the tyres was done ‘haphazardly and untidily’. - As long as there has been a non-natural use, the thing that escapes need not be the thing that has been accumulated.
> While agreeing that it would be possible for Rylands liability to be based on fire, the court found that this would need fire itself to be brought onto the land and then escaped.
> As the tyres themselves had not escaped, there could be no liability.
