Rylands v Fletcher Flashcards
Definition
Specialised form of private nuisance which has its own rules. Escape of something dangerous in the course of a non-natural use of land that causes foreseeable damage.
Requirements
The principle can be broken down into:
- Collecting and keeping on land
- Non-natural use of land
- Likely to do mischief if it escapes
- Escapes and causes harm to the property
Collecting and keeping
Requires something to be brought onto the land by the defendant. Liability cannot be established if something that occurs naturally on the land escapes and causes harm. The thing that is collected and kept on the land might be the thing that escapes but this is not a requirement. It may be that the thing that is collected and kept on the land causes something else to escape
Non-natural use of the land
It has been held that water escaping from an overflow pipe could not be described as non-natural use of land. Damage to property caused by leaking water was a risk against which insurance was available.
Likely to do mischief if it escapes
The thing collected and kept on land need not be dangerous in itself provided that it is likely to cause harm if it escapes.
Escapes and causes harm
Must cause harm to claimant’s property. Strict liability - defendant would be liable even if this was not something that he could have predicted or guarded against. Despite this strict liability it is still necessary to establish that the harm was foreseeable
Defences - Contributory negligence
If the claimant was partly to blame for the damage to his property e.g by failing to take proper precautions against the sort of harm which occurred any award of damages may be reduced
Defences - Consent
If the claimant expressly or impliedly consented to the collecting and keeping of the thing that escaped he cannot then hold the defendant liable for the consequences of the escape
Defences - Act of God
Relates to the unforeseeable natural circumstances that cause the escape. E.g if heavy flooding had causes the water to escape in Rylands there would have been scope to argue that the flooding was caused by an act of God
