Lord Romilly MR considered the acquisition of a right to commit a nuisance by prescription.
Held: An injunction was granted to restrain the issue of smoke and noise. He said: ‘It is true that, by lapse of time, if the owner of the adjoining tenement, which, in case of light or water, is usually called the servient tenement, has not resisted for a period of twenty years, then the owner of the dominant tenement has acquired the right of discharging the gases or fluid, or sending smoke or noise from his tenement over the tenement of his neighbour; but until that time has elapsed, the owner of the adjoining or neighbouring tenement, whether he has or has not previously occupied it, – in other words, whether he comes to the nuisance or the nuisance comes to him, – retains the right to have the air that passes over his land pure and unpolluted, and the soil and produce of it uninjured by the passage of gases, by the deposit of deleterious substances, or by the flow of water.’
Judges:
Lord Romilly MR
Citations:
(1867) LR 3 Eq 409
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Lawrence and Another v Fen Tigers Ltd and Others QBD 4-Mar-2011
The claimants had complained that motor-cycle and other racing activities on neighbouring lands were a noise nuisance, but the court also considered that agents of the defendants had sought to intimidate the claimants into not pursuing their action. . .
Cited – Coventry and Others v Lawrence and Another SC 26-Feb-2014
C operated a motor racing circuit as tenant. The neighbour L objected that the noise emitted by the operations were a nuisance. C replied that the fact of his having planning consent meant that it was not a nuisance.
Held: The neighbour’s . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Nuisance
Updated: 07 October 2022; Ref: scu.430352