Nuisance Flashcards
Connolly v South Ireland Asphalt
If the rights that are interfered with belong to a person as a member of the public, the act or omission is a public nuisance. If the rights that are interfered with relate to the ownership or occupation of land, or some other easement, profit or other right enjoyed in connection then the acts or omissions amount to a private nuisance
Thomas v NUM
- Striking minors blocked public highway
- Held public nuisance
- Did not give rise to private claim, however
Mullan v Forrester
- Public nuisance claims cannot give rise to private nuisance claims unless a party suffered special or particular damage
- In this case personal injury
Hanrahan v Merck, Sharpe & Dunne
- ‘what an occupier of land is entitled to as against his neighbour, is the comfortable and healthy enjoyment of the land to the degree that would be expected by any ordinary person whose requirements are objectively reasonable in all the particular circumstances’
Fearn v Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery
- Confirmed that private nuisance claims are property torts
- Tate Gallery introduced place where visitors could look over London
- Apartment block argued nuisance
- COA rejected appeal
- An annoyance cannot give rise to a nuisance
Hunter v Canary Wharf
- Television signal to the claimant’s apartment was disrupted by the construction of the Canary Wharf tower which was over 250m in height
- Held that emanations may be things such as dirt, noise, fumes, smell
- However, something on the defendant’s land that stops something getting to the plaintiff’s land is not enough
Halpin v Tara Mines
‘A party asserting that he has sustained material damage to his property by reason of an alleged nuisance must establish the fact of such damage and that it was caused by the nuisance as alleged. It is no defence to such a claim, if established, that the activities complained of were carried out with the highest standards of care, skill and supervision and equipment or that such activities are of great pubic importance and cannot be conveniently carried out in another way’
St Helen’s Smelting Co
- Damage caused to shrubs from noxious fumes emanating from the defendant’s copper smelting plant amounted to nuisance
Halpin v Tara Mines
- Cracks in a building from vibrations emanating from the defendant’s land would suffice
- However failed on causation grounds
Vernon Knight
- test for considering omissions
i) A landowner owes a measured duty in both negligence and nuisance to take reasonable steps to prevents natural occurrences on his land from causing damage to neighbouring properties
ii) In determining the content of the measured duty, the court must consider what is fair, just and reasonable as between the two neighbouring properties
- Having regard to all circumstances such as foreseeable rick, available preventative measures etc.
iii) Where the defendant is a public authority with substantial resources, the Court must take into account the competing demands on those resources and the public purposes for which they are held
It may not be fair, just and reasonable to require a public authority to expand those resources on infrastructure works in order to protect a few individuals against a modest risk of property damage
Leakey v National Trust
- The defendant had land to the rear of the plaintiff’s house
- The topsoil from the defendant’s land began slipping into the plaintiff’s land
- P brought action in nuisance seeking damages for the harm caused to his land from the topsoil
- Also a mandatory injunction requiring the defendant to remove the soil and to take remedial measures to prevent further harm from occurring
- Held plaintiff was entitled to these remedies
Holbeck Hall Hotel v National Trust
- D was owner of undercliff between the plaintiff’s hotel and the sea
- Two landslides had occurred due to coastal erosion
- The defendant had engaged experts to assess the damage and remedial work was carried out
- A further slippage occurred which destabilised the foundations to the plaintiff’s hotel which had to be raised to the ground
- P brought nuisance claim
- Found D not liable
Sedleigh-Denfield v O’Callaghan
- Can arise from third parties
- Local authorities came and inserted drainage pipe into defendant’s and
- Opening of pipe later became blocked
- Flooded plaintiff’s land
- Held defendants were liable for failing to take reasonable action to alleviate nuisance
Goldman v Hargrove
- Defendant was liable for not taking reasonable steps to prevent the spread of a fire that resulted from a lightning strike on his property
Lynch v Heatherton
- Plaintiff’s car was damaged when a tree fell on to the road from the defendant’s property
- Tree was rotting from the inside
- Farmer had not noticed anything wrong
- Held the defendant had acted reasonably
- No outward signs of the tree rotting
Patterson v Murphy
- P succeeded in a claim for nuisance where the defendant’s blasting operations caused damage to his windows and walls
Midwood
- ‘the magnitude, intensity, and a scale of the defendant’s operations will tend naturally towards a finding of the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s objections to the alleged nuisance’
Bolton v Stone
- 6 cricket balls landed in the plaintiff’s land over 30 years
- Not actionable
Lanigan v Barry
- ‘what would be a nuisance in quiet areas in Dublin 4 would not necessarily constitute an actionable tort in the industrial heartland of West Dublin’
Sturges v Bridgeman
- Plaintiff was a doctor who moved into a quiet residential area
- Builds consulting room in the back end of his garden
- Defendant operated confectionary business at the end of his garden
- P argued that the noise caused disturbance of his consultations
- Given the locality, the court held that the defendant’s business amounted to nuisance
Coventry v Lawrence
- P bought house that was near speedway
- Did not realise this
- Planning permission obtained for ten years
- ‘that the mere fact that the activity which gives rise to the nuisance has the benefit of a planning permission is normally of no assistance to the defendant a claim brought by a neighbour who contends that the activity cause a nuisance to her land in the form of noise or any other loss of amenity’
- However, ‘in some cases, the grant of planning permission for a particular activity…may provide a strong support for the contention that the activity is of benefit to the public, which would be relevant to the question of whether or not to grant an injunction’
Van Derpant v Mayfair Hotel Ltd
- ‘it is necessary to determine whether the act complained of is an inconvenience materially interfering with the ordinary physical comfort of human existence’
Heath v Mayor of Brighton
- Complaints made about the noise of defendant’s power station
- Nobody else had made complaints
- Not an objectively good reason for nuisance claim
Miller v Jackson
- P bought house beside cricket club
- Was an enticing factor
- Realised that there were flying balls during the cricket season
- Brought nuisance claim
- Could not sit in their garden during the summer
- Court held that cricket is to the ‘delight of everyone’
