Cases - Tehidy Minerals Ltd v Norman
Record details
- Name
- Tehidy Minerals Ltd v Norman
- Date
- (1971)
- Citation
- 2 QB 528
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Rights of light
- Summary
-
This case did not concern rights of light, but the Court of Appeal set out a useful test for abandonment. The defendants, who owned farms, claimed rights to graze animals on a down owned by the plaintiff. The down was requisitioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1941. In 1954, licences were issued to the commoners' association, of which the defendants were members, to use the down for grazing. In 1960, further arrangements were made between the plaintiff and the association in relation to grazing on the down. It was held that the defendants had acquired prescriptive rights to graze on the down by 1941. It was argued by the plaintiff, however, that arrangements in 1960 in relation to grazing, which meant that the defendants did not use their common rights to graze, but instead that the association had control of grazing on the down, amounted to abandonment of the defendants' rights.
The Court of Appeal decided that there was no abandonment because the 1960 agreement was of a temporary and terminable nature. It was held that abandonment of an easement could only be treated as having taken place where the person entitled to it had demonstrated a fixed intention never at any time thereafter to assert the right himself or to attempt to transmit it to anyone else.