Nuisences

Defination Of Nuisances * “Unlawful interference with a person’s use or enjoyment of land, or some right over, or in connection, with it.” Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort. * it involves interference with land, the claimant, as you will see, has to have an interest in land. * the aim of private nuisance is to protect interests in land, damages for personal injury are not recoverable under this tort.

Who can sue? * It has traditionally protected interest in land. * Only a person who has some proprietary interest I land. Can maintain an action. It is : i) A landowner ii) An occupier ( whether as tenant, lessee or a person in actual possessions )

For example in cases of Foster -v- Warblington Urban District Council; CA 1906 * A nuisance was caused by the discharge of sewage by the defendant council into oyster beds. The plaintiff was an oyster merchant who had for many years been in occupation of the oyster beds which had been artificially constructed on the foreshore, which belonged to the lord of the manor. The plaintiff excluded everybody from the oyster beds, and nobody interfered with his occupation of the oyster beds or his removal and sale of oysters from them.

* Held: He could sue the defendant Council in nuisance, notwithstanding that he could not prove his title. Stirling LJ: ‘I think, therefore, that, as against a private individual, the plaintiff would have a right of action, and I do not think that this case can be governed by the decision in the case of Corporation of Truro v. Rowe. There the contest arose between the owners of the foreshore and a person who claimed simply to be availing himself of a public right of fishing. Here the contest arises, in my view, between the person who is in occupation of a portion of the foreshore and a wrongdoer. Whether the plaintiff would be able to resist the claims of the owner of the foreshore, whoever he may be, or the owner of a several fishery, if such