Distinction between trespass and case Flashcards
Understand the difference between direct and indirect actions
Hutchins v Maughan [1947] VLR 131
Facts: Dogs ate poisoned baits and died. D warned P, P thought he was bluffing.
Herring CJ: The injury caused by the act was consequential and so trespass does not lie in the laying of the baits. If the defendant had thrown the baits at the dogs it could be said that the injury was a direct result of the act and trespass would have been committed.
Log analogy by Blackstone.
Reynolds v Clarke (1725) 93 ER 747
“The distinction in law is, where the immediate act itself occasions a prejudice, or is an injury to the plaintiff’s person, house, land, etc., and where the act itself is not an injury, but a consequence from that act is prejudicial to the plaintiff’s person, house, land, etc. In the first case trespass vi et armis will lie; in the last it will not, but the plaintiff’s proper remedy is by an action on the case.”
Example of aiming a water hose at a neighbours land, which is direct and a trespass, as opposed to constructing a waterspout which diverts water onto a neighbours land. This is an indirect interference and therefore not a trespass, but gives rise to the tort of nuisance.
Scott v Shepherd (1773) 96 ER 525
“squib” fire cracker situation.
Blackstone J; “where the injury is immediate, an action of trespass will lie; where it is only consequential, it must be an action on the case.”–> analogy of the log on the highway.
Involuntary acts of the people who threw the squib away from themselves did not break the immediacy/directness of the defendant’s act.
Southport Corp v Esso Petroleum Co Ltd [1954] 2 QB 182
A small tanker called the ‘Inverpool’, which belonged to the defendant company, became stranded in the Ribble estuary and to float her the master discharged about 400 tons of fuel oil into the estuary. The oil became deposited on P’s forshaw and P sought to recover the cost of clean up by suing in negligence, nuisance and trespass.
Followed Denning LJ “[i]n order to support an action for trespass to the land the act done by the defendant must be a physical act done by him directly on to the plaintiff’s land…”
