Cases - Foster v Warblington UDC

Record details

Name

Foster v Warblington UDC

Date

(1906)

Citation

1 KB 648

Keywords

Rights of light

Summary

The plaintiff had bought oyster ponds (used for the storage of oysters to be fattened for sale) on the foreshore some 25 years before the action and the ponds had been used by his predecessors for many years before that. The plaintiff brought an action against the defendant Council in nuisance and trespass for polluting the oyster ponds by discharge of sewage. The defendant argued, amongst other things, that the plaintiff had no sufficient interest in the land (i.e. the soil of the foreshore on which the oyster ponds were situated) to give him a right to sue. It was not clear to whom the soil belonged legally or whether the plaintiff had acquired title to it, for example, by adverse possession.

The Court of Appeal held that the plaintiff had a right to sue, as exclusive occupier of the ponds, whether or not he had acquired an interest in the land itself.