Trespass To Land Flashcards
Kelsen v Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd
A person possess airspace to a reasonable height.
There was a trespass because the trespass into airspace interfered with the ordinary use of land.
Lord Bernstein v Skyviews and General Ltd
Trespass to land (airspace) is not always actionable.
The activity (taking photographs) was not a trespass to land as it took place above the level of ordinary use of land. Skyviews were protected by the statute.
Anchor Brewhouse Developments Ltd v Berkley House (Docklands Developments) Ltd
A trespass may be temporary when the arm of a crane swings into the airspace of a person’s property.
Star Energy Weald Basin Ltd v Bocardo SA
A trespass can be committed by a person who digs or drills into someone else’s land 9subsoil).
Although there was no interference with the claimant’s enjoyment of land, the Court of Appeal held that there was a trespass.
Bulli Coal Mining v Osborne
Trespass to subsoil when the defendant mined from their land through to the claimant’s land.
DPP v Jones
Lord Irvine LC: provided these activities are reasonable, do not involve the commission of a public or private nuisance and do not amount to an obstruction of the highway unreasonably impeding the primary right of the general public to pass and repass.
The House of Lord accepted that reasonable activity could include a peaceful non-obstructive assembly of people.
Graham v Peat
Lord Kenyon CJ: any possession is a legal possession against a wrongdoer.
As a consequence, even a squatter has enforceable rights against anyone who enters that land other than a person with a better legal title.
The Calgarth
Trespass could be committed if the person has no permission to be on the land or to do anything with it, or the person has exceeded their permission to be on the land.
Scrutton LJ: when you invite a person into your house to use the staircase you do not invite them to slide down the bannisters.
Basely v Clarkson
Intention to enter could be a mistaken intention, for example walking on land believing that it belongs to someone who has invited them to be there.
The defendant went over the boundary in error and mowed his neighbour’s land as he thought it was his own.
The defence of the mistake failed because the act of cutting the grass was intentional.
League Against Cruel Sports v Scott
The defendant could act in a negligent way and still be iable for trespass.
The court held that if, when hunting, the riders entered land after permission to enter it had been refused, the master of the hunt would be liable if he intended the dogs to enter, or if the entry was caused by his failure to control them. Persistent hunting in circumstances where trespass was impossible to prevent was evidence of intention to trespass.
Woollerton & Wilson v Richards Costain
Intrusion above the surface is actionable at least in the case where the intruder is still attached to the ground.
The claimant refused the offer and began proceedings for an interim injunction preventing the trespass.
Holmes v Wilson
The defendant paid damages for initial trespass and then damages for every day that the supports remained on the property.
Westripp v Baldock
It was held that a ladder leaning against the claimant’s wall was a trespass.
Southwark Borough Council v Williams
It was held that a need for shelter however desperate cannot justify the defendant’s trespass because to hold otherwise would open to abuse.
Hickman v Maisey
These rights are very specific and the defendant must stay with their limits. Simply because the defendant has the right to walk the highway going over the claimant’s land does not entail a right to spy on the claimant, even if the defendant is careful to keep walking as he spies.
It was held that a man resting at the side of the road, or taking a sketch from the highway, would not be a trespasser. The defendant’s activities however fell outside ‘an ordinary and reasonable user of the highway’ and so amounted to a trespass.
Smith LJ: unless what the defendant did comes wthin the ordinary and reasonable use of a highway as such and is therefore lawful, it is clear that it would be a trespass.
Collins LJ: in modern times a reasonable extension has been given to the use of the highway as such. The right of the public to pass and repass on a highway is subject to all those reasonable extensions which may from time to time be recognised as necessary to its exercise in accordance with the enlarged notions of people in a country becoming more populous and highly civilised, but they must be such as are not inconsistent with the maintenance of the paramount idea that the right of the public is that of passage.
