Cases - Sedleigh-Denfield v O'Callaghan

Record details

Name

Sedleigh-Denfield v O'Callaghan

Date

(1940)

Citation

AC 880

Keywords

Rights of light

Summary

The defendant college and the plaintiff owned adjoining premises. The council fitted pipes into a ditch on the defendant's land to supply water to nearby flats. The defendant was not informed by the council about the existence of the pipes on its land. The defendant did, however, employ someone to check its land twice a year and the employee became aware of the pipes. In fitting the pipes, the council failed to fix a guard over the ditch to prevent it becoming blocked by debris. Three years later the ditch became blocked and the plaintiff's land was flooded. The plaintiff brought proceedings in nuisance against the defendant for damages.

The House of Lords held that the defendant was liable in damages for the nuisance that it had continued and adopted. It held that an occupier continued a nuisance if, in circumstances in which he knew or should have known of its existence, he failed to take any reasonable means to bring it to an end, although he had ample time to do so. A person adopted a nuisance if he made any use of the thing (e.g. a building) which constituted the nuisance. In this case, the defendant college had allowed the nuisance to continue, by failing to put a grid on the ditch to prevent it becoming blocked. It had also adopted the nuisance, by using the pipe for getting rid of water from their property without making it safe.