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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:41:30 +0000 From: Stephen Offei Subject: The Rule in Rylands v Fletcher
Dear Colleagues, As you must be aware, in the Australian case of Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Limited (1994) 120 ALR 42, the High Court held that the principle of Rylands v Fletcher should be regarded as overtaken and replaced, by the principles of liability in negligence. The gist of Rylands v Fletcher is that it governs liability for escape from land, used for non-natural purpose, which causes damage. Rylands v Fletcher overlaps with nuisance and liability lies in the alternative. In Cambridge Water Co v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 1 All ER 53 the House of Lords reviewed in depth Rylands v Fletcher, and re-stated the principle, holding, in effect, that Rylands v Fletcher had not introduced any radical new departure from the well settled principles of nuisance, but was an extension of the law of nuisance to deal with 'one off escapes'. In other words, the law of nuisance generally requires the presence of a 'state of affairs' amounting to an unreasonable user. It was the extension, approved in Rylands v Fletcher, that enabled the law of nuisance also to be applied, given certain preconditions, to one off incidents. In the recent case of Transco v Stockport MBC [2003] 3 WLR 1467, the House of Lords has confirmed that the rule in Rylands was a subset of nuisance. The House said that the rule should be confined to circumstances where the occupier has brought some dangerous thing onto his land which poses an exceptionally high risk to neighbouring property should it escape, and which amounts to an extraordinary and unusual use of land. Against this background, can we say that the Australian decision is worth pursuing? I shall be particularly keen to know where the Canadian and New Zealand Courts stand on Rylands v Fletcher at the moment.
Thanks Stephen Professor
Stephen Offei
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