swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.
Utilities - From: 1900 To: 1929
This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Baron v Portslade Urban District Council [1900] 2 QB 588
1900
Utilities
The local authority was held liable for omitting to clean a sewer. The existence of a procedure for the enforcement of statutory duties did not exclude common law remedies for common law torts, such as a nuisance arising from failure to keep a sewer properly cleaned.
Public Health Act 1875
1 Citers
Wincanton Rural District Council v Parsons [1905] 2 KB 34
1905
KB
Kennedy J, Ridley J
Nuisance, Utilities
The defendant had constructed a sewage drain to take discharge from his house. It ran for 250 feet to a catch-pit, and then continued for 70 feet under a highway and was then joined by a drain from another house. For this 70-foot stretch it was also used for carrying the surface water from the highway. This part of the drain (and the catch-pit) had been constructed by the tenant of the neighbouring property to prevent surface water from the highway flowing into his premises. The local authority had never adopted the highway. The plaintiffs complained of a statutory nuisance when the drain broke about six feet beyond the catch-pit, so that sewage collected in the catch-pit. The defendant contended that at this point the drain was a sewer which the plaintiffs were liable to repair themselves. Held: Even if this was the case he had no defence to the charge, and he could at any time have ended the nuisance by ceasing to discharge his sewage into the pipe leading to the catch-pit. The question whether the stretch of drain beyond the catch-pit was or was not a sewer did not fall directly for decision, but was fully argued, and a decision was made on the point. The plaintiffs adduced two reasons for arguing that the drain was not a sewer, of which only one is relevant in the present context. This was to the effect that a drain which carried the sewage from one house and the rainwater from a highway did not come within the statutory definition of a sewer. The defendant on the other hand argued, like Mr Straker nearly 100 years later, that the pipe was a sewer because it drained the surface of the highway in addition to his building. Kennedy J: "I do not think it was a sewer. The pipe in question was not made by the appellants, nor was it adopted by them as a sewer. It was made by private persons for private purposes, to prevent surface water collecting on the highway from running thence onto their premises. And under those circumstances the mere fact that the respondent has for some years discharged the sewage from his house into the pipe cannot convert it into a sewer." Ridley J agreed that the pipe was not a sewer.
1 Citers
Metropolitan Water Board v Paine [1907] 1 KB 285
1907
Ridley J
Land, Utilities
The context was used showed that "premises" mean land with buildings. Land still vacant on which the owner proposed in the future to erect buildings did not qualify as premises within section 79 of the 1853 Act.
East London Waterworks Act 1853
1 Citers
Attorney General v Lewes Corporation [1911] 2 Ch 495
1911
Swinfen Eady J
Utilities, Local Government
The local authority was accused of discharging crude sewage into an intermittent partially tidal stream. Held: Swinfen Eady J said: "The question then arises, is the culvert a sewer? The plaintiffs contend it is. The defendants dispute it. The mere pollution of a natural stream or watercourse by turning sewage into it does not convert it into a sewer. On the other hand, if the watercourse has become substantially a sewer, the fact that at certain periods of the year clean water flows into it will not in my opinion prevent it from being a sewer. The question is one of fact and degree in each case. See Falconar v. South Shields Corporation (1895) 11 TLR 223. In that case Lindley L.J. pointed out that the stream had changed its character completely and had become a sewer in the ordinary sense of the word, i.e., a channel for the reception and carrying away of sewage. It was a dirty, filthy sewer."
1 Citers
Schwann v Cotton [1916] 2 CH 459 CA
1916
CA
Land, Utilities
Blackacre, Greenacre and Whiteacre had all formerly been in common ownership and the owner of Whiteacre denied that Blackacre was entitled to an easement to pass the water from Greenacre to Blackacre. Held: The Will which effected' the severance of the three properties operated to devise Blackacre with the right of passage of such water as might flow through the pipe and to devise Whiteacre subject to such a right. Further, although the right of Blackacre to a supply of water from Greenacre had not been established, the possible lack of any right to such water as against Greenacre did not impair the validity of the right to the passage of water through Whiteacre. In considering an easement for a water supply the court drew a crucial distinction between a right to supply of water and a right to the passage of water. The obligation was limited to a duty to allow water to flow along the pipe. It was not a duty to supply water.
1 Citers
Hesketh v Birmingham Corporation; 1924 - [1924] 1 KB 260
Birkdale District Electric Supply Co. Ltd v The Corporation of Southport [1926] AC 355
1926
Lord Birkenhead
Administrative, Utilities
The appellants, having bound themselves not to exercise their discretion in the raising of electricity prices, were held not to have incompetently fettered their discretion, bearing in mind the commercial purposes for which the discretion was conferred and the commercial reasons for which the price fixing agreement had been entered to. Lord Birkenhead said that there is: "a well-established principle of law, that if a person or public body is entrusted by the legislature with certain powers and duties expressly or impliedly for public purposes, those persons or bodies cannot divest themselves of these powers and duties. They cannot enter into any contract or take any action incompatible with the due exercise of their powers or the discharge of their duties."
1 Citers