Rylands v.Fletcher
3 H.& C.774,159 Eng.Rep.737,1865
In the Exchequer Chamber L.R.1 Ex.265 1866
In the House of Lords,L.R.3 H.L.330,1868.
[Action brought in 1861 and tried at the Liverpool Summer Assizes (1862).A verdict was found for the plaintiff subject to the award of an arbitrator,who was afterwards empowered by a court order to state a special case instead of making an award.The material facts in the special case stated by the arbitrator were as follows:
The defendants were the owners of a mill.In order to supply it with water they constructed upon the nearby land of Lord Wilton,with his permission,a reservoir.The plaintiff under lease from Lord Wilton was working certain coal mines under lands close to but not adjoining the premises on which the reservoir was constructed.They worked their mine in the direction of the reservoir until they came upon certain older workings,part of which at least had been made and abandoned at a time beyond living memory.These workings consisted of horizontal passages and vertical shafts,the latter apparently filled with rubbish and marl similar to that of the solid earth surrounding them.The defendant employed a competent engineer and competent contractors to plan and construct the reservoir,and it was so planned and constructed solely by them upon a site,in the choice of which the defendants were guilty of no personal fault.In fact,the old mine workings lay beneath it and,continuing under the intermediate lands,communicated,at the point to which the plaintiff had pushed its workings in that direction,with the workings of the plaintiff.The contractors in excavating for the bed of the reservoir came upon five of the above mentioned vertical shafts;the sides or walls of these were of timber,but because they were filled with soil of the same kind as that composing the surrounding ground,neither the contractors nor the defendants suspected that they were abandoned mine shafts.The arbitrator found that the defendants were guilty of no personal negligence or fault,but that the engineer and contractors had not in fact exercised proper care,with reference to the shafts discovered,to provide for the sufficiency of the reservoir to bear the pressure that it was designed to bear when in use.
The reservoir was completed in December,1860 and the defendants had it partly filled.Within a few days,one of the shafts that had been met while excava-t ing gave way and burst downward,letting the water into the abandoned workings beneath,through which it flowed,through the communications that the plaintiffs in working their mine had made between the two,into the plaintiffs’ workings,flooding their mine.
The question for the opinion of the Court was whether the plaintiff was entitled to recover damages from the defendant by reason of the matters thus stated by the arbitrator.
In the Exchequer,judgment was given for the defendants by a 2-to-1 vote.Martin,B.,said there was no trespass,because the damage was not “immediate,”but “mediate or consequential.” There was no nuisance,because the defendants were doing a lawful and reasonable act.The same rule must be applied to real property as to personal property,that there must be applied to real property as to personal property,that there must be negligence on the part of the defendant to make him responsible.The plaintiff brought error to the Exchequer Chamber.]
BLACKBURN,J.It appears from the statement in the case,that the plaintiff was damaged by his property being flooded by water which,without any fault on his part,broke out of a reservoir constructed on the defendants’ land by the defendants’ orders,and maintained by the defendants….
The plaintiff,though free from all blame on his part,must bear the loss,unless he can establish that it was the consequence of some default for which the defendants are responsible.The question of law therefore arises,what is the obligation which the law casts on a person who,like the defendants,lawfully brings on his land something which though harmless whilst it remains there,will naturally do mischief if it escape out of his land.It is agreed on all hands that he must take care to keep in that which he has brought on the land and keeps there,in order that it may not escape and damage his neighbors;but the question arises whether the duty which the law casts upon him,under such circumstances,is an absolute duty to keep it in at his peril,or is,as the majority of the Court of Exchequer have thought,merely a duty to take all reasonable and prudent precautions,in order to keep it in,but no more.If the first be the law,the person who has brought on his land and kept there something dangerous,and failed to keep it in,is responsible for all the natural consequences of its escape.If the second be the limit of his duty,he would not be answerable except on proof of negligence,and consequently would not be answerable for escape arising from any latent defect which ordinary prudence and skill could not detect.(https://www.daowen.com)
We think that the true rule of law is that the person who for his own purposes brings on his lands and collects and keeps there any thing likely to do mischief if it escapes,must keep it in at his peril,and if he does not do so,is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape.He can excuse himself by showing that the escape was owing to the plaintiff’s default;or perhaps that the escape was the consequence of vis major,or the act of God;but as nothing of this sort exists here,it is unnecessary to inquire what excuse would be sufficient.The general rule,as above stated,seems on principle just.The person whose grass or corn is eaten down by the escaping cattle of his neighbor,or whose mine is flooded by the water from his neighbor’s reservoir,or whose cellar is invaded by the filth of his neighbor’s privy,or whose habitation is made unhealthy by the fumes and noisome vapors of his neighbor’s alkali works,is damnified without any fault of his own;and it seems but reasonable and just that the neighbor,who has brought something on his own property which was not naturally there,harmless to others so long as it is confined to his own property,but which he knows to be mischievous if it gets on his neighbor’s,should be obliged to make good the damage which ensues if he does not succeed in confining it to his own property.But for his act in bringing it there no mischief could have accrued,and it seems but just that he should at his peril keep it there,so that no mischief may accrue,or answer for the natural and anticipated consequences.And upon authority,this we think is established to be the law,whether the things so brought be beasts,or water,or filth,or stenches.
The case that has most commonly occurred and which is most frequently to be found in the books,is as to the obligation of the owner of cattle which he has brought on his land to prevent their escaping and doing mischief.The law as to them seems to be perfectly settled from early times;the owner must keep them in at his peril,or he will be answerable for the natural consequences of their escape;that is,with regard to tame beasts,for the grass they eat and trample upon,though not for an injury to the person of others,for our ancestors have settled that it is not the general nature of horses to kick,or bulls to gore;but if the owner knows that the beast has a vicious propensity to attack man,he will be answerable for that too….
Judgment for the plaintiff.
Rylands and Horrocks brought error to the House of Lords against the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber,which had reversed the judgment of the Court of Exchequer.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD CAIRNS)….My Lords,the principles in which this case must be determined appear to me to be extremely simple.The defendants,treating them as the owner or occupiers of the close on which the reservoir was constructed,might lawfully have used that close for any purpose for which it might in the ordinary course of the enjoyment of land be used;and if,in what I may term the natural use of that land,there had been any accumulation of water,either on the surface of underground,and if,by the operation of the laws of nature,that accumulation of water had passed off into the close occupied by the plaintiff,the plaintiff could not have complained that that result had taken place.If he had desired to guard himself against it,it would have been lain upon him to have done so,by leaving,or by interposing,some barrier between his close and the close of the defendants in order to have prevented that operation of the laws of nature.
As an illustration of that principle,I may refer to a case which was cited in the argument before your Lordships,the case of Smith v.Kendrick,in the Court of Common Pleas,7 C.B.515.
On the other hand,if the defendants,not stopping at the natural use of their close,had desired to use it for any purpose which I may term a non-natural use,for the purpose of introducing into the close that which in its natural condition was not in or upon it,for the purpose of introducing water either above or below ground in quantities and in a manner not the result of any work or operation on or under the land;and if in consequence of their doing so,or in consequence of any imperfection in the mode of their doing so,the water came to escape and to pass off into the close of the plaintiff,then it appears to me that that which the defendants were doing they were doing at their own peril;and,if in the course of their doing it the evil arose to which I have referred,the evil,namely,of the escape of the water and its passing away to the close of the plaintiff and injuring the plaintiff,then for the consequence of that,in my opinion,the defendants would be liable.As the case of Smith v.Kendrick is an illustration of the first principle to which have referred,so also the second principle to which I have referred is well illustrated by another case in the same Court,the case of Baird v.Williamson,15 C.B.N.S.317,which was also cited in the argument at the bar….
Judgment of the Court of Exchequer Chamber affirmed.