swarb.co.uk - law index
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Utilities - From: 1930 To: 1959
This page lists 12 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Stevens v Aldershot Gas, Water and District Lighting Co; 1932 - (1932) LJKB 12
The Montreal Light, Heat and Power Consolidated and Others v The City of Outremont [1932] UKPC 14
23 Feb 1932
PC
Utilities, Rating
Quebec - The Board was asked as to the liability for municipal and school taxes in respect of the gas mains installed under the streets.
[ Bailii ]
Gillett v Kent Rivers Catchment Board [1938] 4 All ER 810
1938
Stable J
Local Government, Utilities
1 Citers
Smith v Cawdle Fen, Ely (Cambridge) Commissioners [1938] 4 All ER 64; (1938) 82 Sol Jo 890; (1938) 37 LGR 22; (1938) 160 LT 61
1938
du Parcq J
Utilities, Local Government
The plaintiff's land had been damaged by flooding. The defendants had power to execute works which might have prevented the floods. Held: The defendants were under no duty, having only a power. The statute did not direct or require the defendant to do such work.
1 Citers
East Suffolk Rivers Catchment Board v Kent [1941] AC 74; [1940] UKHL 3
1941
HL
Lord Romer, Lord Atkin
Negligence, Local Government, Utilities
An exceptionally high spring tide caused many breaches of the banks of the River Deben, and extensive flooding, including the respondent's farm. By section 6 of the 1930 Act, the appellants had a statutory power to maintain the flood defences, but no duty to do so. They had however entered onto land to begin works. Held: A statutory power could not in itself generate a common law duty of care. The respondents aregued that they had a duty to do and were in breach.
Lord Atkin (dissenting) said: "By going onto the land and commencing the work, the Catchment Board had done an act which created a common law duty to complete the work with reasonable despatch."
and "I treat it therefore as established that a public authority whether doing an act which it is its duty to do, or doing an act which it is merely empowered to do, must in doing the act do it without negligence, or as it is put in some of the cases must not do it carelessly or improperly. Now quite apart from a duty owed to a particular individual which is the question in this case I suggest that it would be difficult to lay down that a duty upon a public authority to act without negligence or not carelessly or improperly does not include a duty to act with reasonable diligence by which I mean reasonable dispatch. I cannot imagine this House affording its support to a proposition so opposed to public interests where there are so many public bodies exercising statutory powers and employing public money upon them."
Land Drainage Act 1930 6
1 Cites
1 Citers
[ Bailii ]
Heard v Brymbo Steel Company Ltd [1947] KB 69
1947
CA
Morton, Tucker and Somervell LJJ
Utilities, Personal Injury
The plaintiff was injured in an explosion at work arising from a short-circuit occurring because of breaches by the second defendants, the North Wales Power Co Ltd, of the 1937 regulations, 24 and 25. The 1899 Act applied, and it provided that undertakers would be liable for all accidents, damages and injuries happening through their act or "default". The word "default" was also found in regulation 39. Held: The power company was liable. Somervell LJ explained that the default, a breach of regulations 24 and 25, and which might cause damage or injury under regulation 39, was a default for which undertakers were answerable under the 1899 Act. They were liable not because the breaches of regulations 24 and 25 of the 1937 Regulations per se gave rise to civil liability, but because the default which constituted the breach of those regulations was also a "default" which made the company liable to pay damages under para 77 of the schedule to the 1899 Act.
Electricity Supply Regulations 1937 24 25 39 - Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act 1899
1 Citers
Harrison v National Coal Board; HL 1951 - [1951] AC 639; [1951] 1 TLR 1079; [1951] 95 Sol Jo 413; [1951] 1 All ER 1102
Smeaton v Ilford Corporation [1954] Ch 450
1954
ChD
Upjohn J
Utilities, Land
Overloading caused the corporation's foul sewer to erupt through a manhole and discharge "deleterious and malodorous matter" into Mr Smeaton's garden. Held: The authority were not liable. e connections with the sewer and to discharge their sewage into it.
The court denied the possibility of pursuing a claim for damages in nuisance where there was a statutory remedy available: "No doubt the defendant corporation are bound to provide and maintain the sewers (see section 14 of the Public Health Act 1936), but they are not thereby causing or adopting the nuisance. It is not the sewers that constitute the nuisance; it is the fact that they are overloaded. That overloading, however, arises not from any act of the defendant corporation but because, under section 34 of the Public Health Act 1936 . . they are bound to permit occupiers of premises to make connexions to the sewer and to discharge their sewage therein . . Nor, in my judgment, can the defendant corporation be said to continue the nuisance, for they have no power to prevent the ingress of sewage into the sewer."
Public Health Act 1936 14 34
1 Cites
1 Citers
Italy v ECSC High Authority; ECJ 21-Dec-1954 - C-2/54
Federation Charbonniere De Belgium v ECSC High Authority C-8/55; [1956] EUECJ C-8/55
16 Jul 1956
ECJ
European, Utilities
[ Bailii ] - [ Bailii ]
Societe Des Usines A Tubes De La Sarre v High Authority of The European Coal And Steel Community [1957] EUECJ C-1/57
10 Dec 1957
ECJ
Utilities
(Investments )
[ Bailii ]
British Oxygen Co Ltd v South of Scotland Electricity Board (No.2); HL 16-Apr-1959 - [1959] UKHL 4; [1959] 2 All ER 225; [1959] 1 WLR 587; 1959 SLT 181; 1959 SC (HL) 17