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Nuisance - From: 1993 To: 1993
This page lists 3 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
ÂRegina v Shorrock [1993] 98 Cr App R 67; [1994] QB 279
1993
CACD
Rattee LJ, Simon Brown LJ and Popplewell J
Nuisance, Crime
The defendants used land for an unauthorised "acid party" which caused substantial inconvenience and disruption to neighbours. The defendant denied that he had had the requisite knowledge to be criminally liable. Held: This was capable of amounting to the crime of public nuisance. An act of public nuisance can give rise to both civil (through a relator action) and criminal liability. The court considered what was the necessary mens rea for the offence of public nuisance, and applied Sedleigh-Denfield, saying (Rattee LJ) that he was guilty "if either he knew or he ought to have known, in the sense that the means of knowledge were available to him, that there was a real risk that the consequences of the licence granted by him in respect of his field would be to create the sort of nuisance that in fact occurred".
1 Cites
1 Citers
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AB v South West Water Services Ltd [1993] QB 507; [1993] 1 All ER 609
1993
CA
Sir Thomas Bingham MR, Stuart-Smith LJ
Nuisance, Damages
Exemplary and aggravated damages were claimed in an action for nuisance arising out of the contamination of water by the defendant utility. Held: Sir Thomas Bingham MR said: "A defendant accused of crime may ordinarily be ordered (if convicted) to pay a financial penalty. In such a case he will enjoy the constitutional safeguards afforded to defendants in criminal cases, which may include trial by jury, and the sum he is ordered to pay is received by the state, not (even in the case of a private prosecution) by the prosecutor. In a civil case, arising out of a civil wrong (whether or not it is also a crime), the defendant may be ordered to pay damages. In the ordinary way, damages bear no resemblance to a criminal penalty. The damages awarded to a plaintiff will be such as will compensate him for the loss he has suffered as a result of the wrong, so far as money can. The court looks to the extent of the plaintiff’s loss, not to the quality of the defendant’s conduct. Since the damages are awarded to compensate the plaintiff they are of course paid to him"
As to aggravated damages: "The plaintiffs are of course entitled to be fully compensated for all they suffered as a direct result of the defendants’ admitted breach of duty. The ordinary measure of compensatory damages will cover all they have suffered as a result of that breach, physically, psychologically and mentally. Full account will be taken of the distress and anxiety which such an event necessarily causes. To the extent that any of these effects was magnified or exacerbated by the defendants’ conduct, the ordinary measure of damages will compensate. The question is whether, in addition to that full compensatory measure, the plaintiffs have pleaded a sustainable claim for additional compensation by way of aggravated damaged. This is claimed in paragraph 27 on the basis that the plaintiff’s feelings of indignation were aroused by the defendants’ high-handed way of dealing with the incident. I know of no precedent for awarding damages for indignation aroused by a defendant’s conduct. Defamation cases in which a plaintiff’s damages are increased by the defendant’s conduct of the litigation (as by aggressive cross-examination of the plaintiff or persistence in a groundless plea of justification) are not in my view a true exception, since injury to the plaintiff’s feelings and self-esteem is an important part of the damage for which compensation is awarded. In very many other tort actions (and, for that matter, actions in contract, boundary disputes, partnership actions and other disputes) the plaintiff is indignant at the conduct of the defendant (or his insurers). An award of damages does not follow: nor, in my judgment should it, since this is not damage directly caused by the defendant’s tortious conduct and this is not damage which the law has ever recognised."
1 Citers
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 Cambridge Water Company v Eastern Counties Leather Plc; HL 9-Dec-1993 - Times, 10 December 1993; Gazette, 16 March 1994; Independent, 10 December 1993; (1994) 1 All ER 53; [1994] 2 WLR 53; [1994] 2 AC 264; [1993] UKHL 12
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