Chapter 11Business and the law of tortThe rule has been applied to the escape of such things
as fire, electricity, gas and vibrations. The rule was sub-
sequently considered by the House of Lords in the fol-
lowing case.
349
Rylandsv Fletcher(1868)A mill owner engaged competent contractors to construct
a reservoir on his land to provide water for his mill. In the
course of their work, the contractors came across disused
mine shafts which appeared to be blocked by earth. These
old mine workings, in fact, communicated with a neigh-
bour’s coal mine. So, when the reservoir was filled up, the
water escaped and flooded the coal mine. The House of
Lords held that the mill owner was liable for the damage
caused to his neighbour’s mine, even though he had not
been negligent. Blackburn J, who heard the case in the
Court of Exchequer Chamber, stated the rule in the fol-
lowing terms: ‘... the person who for his own purposes
brings on his land and collects and keeps there anything
likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it at his peril,
and if he does not do so, is prima facieanswerable for all
the damage which is a natural consequence of its escape.’
Lord Cairns added in the House of Lords that the defend-
ant must be making a non-natural use of his land.Cambridge Water Co Ltdv Eastern
Counties Leather plc(1994)
The defendants used a solvent in their tanning business.
The solvent escaped from containers and seeped into the
ground beneath the works. The solvent eventually per-
colated into the water supply, polluting the claimant’s
borehole. The claimants were forced to abandon the
borehole and develop new water supplies. Their claim
for compensation under the rule in Rylandsv Fletcher
failed in the House of Lords on the ground that the
defendants could not reasonably have foreseen that
the spillage of solvent over time would contaminate the
water supply. Their Lordships held that foreseeability
was an essential requirement of liability under the rule
in Rylandsv Fletcher. Although this requirement limits
the availability of a claim under the rule of Rylandsv
Fletcher, Lord Goff possibly expanded the scope of the
rule when he stated that the storage of chemicals was a
classic example of a non-natural use of land.In a more recent case the House of Lords reviewed the
scope and application of the rule in Rylandsv Fletcher
and considered whether there was still a place for the
rule in English law.
Transco plcv Stockport Metropolitan
Borough Council(2004)
The claimant, Transco, brought an action against the
defendant council to recover the cost of remedial action
to its gas main, which had been left exposed and unsup-
ported by the collapse of an embankment. The cause
of the embankment collapse was a leak of water from a
service pipe from the mains supply to tanks in the base-
ment of a block of flats owned by the defendant council.
The fracture in the service pipe was undetected for a
prolonged period of time and a considerable amount of
water escaped from the pipe inside the block of flats and
found its way to the embankment. The embankment
became saturated and eventually collapsed leaving the
claimant’s gas pipe exposed and at risk of cracking. The
claimant did not claim that the fracture of the pipe and
the escape of water was caused by lack of care by the
defendant but rather based its claim on the defendant’s
strict liability under the rule in Rylandsv Fletcher. The
House of Lords held that the defendant council was not
liable for two reasons: the council had not brought onto
its land anything likely to cause danger or mischief if it
escaped, and, in piping water to the flats, it was acting
as an ordinary user of land.
Comment.Their Lordships gave four main reasons for
retaining the strict liability rule of Rylandsv Fletcher:
(1) there is a small category of cases in which it is just to
impose liability even in the absence of fault; (2) common
law rules do not exist in a vacuum, especially those
which have stood for over a century, during which time
Parliament had legislated on the assumption that strict
liability under Rylandsv Fletcherapplied in particular
circumstances; (3) the House of Lords had not accepted
a departure from Rylandsv Fletcherin the Cambridge
Watercase. ‘Stop-go’ was a bad approach to legal
development; (4) while replacement of the strict liability
rule of Rylandsv Fletcherby fault-based liability would
assimilate the laws of England and Wales with the law in
Scotland, it would increase the disparity with the laws of
France and Germany. Their Lordships agreed that the
rule should be retained but restated with certainty and
clarity. The main points are:
(i)The rule is a sub-species of nuisance, which itself is
a tort based on interference by one occupier of land with
the right in or enjoyment of the land of another occupier.
It follows that there is no liability if the events take place
on the land of a single occupier. There must be an
‘escape’ from one person’s land to another’s (Readv J
Lyons & Co Ltd(1946)). As the rule provides a remedy
for damage to land or interests in land, no claim can be
brought for death or personal injury.