A person who has profited from trespassing on someone else’s land may be ordered to pay what are sometimes called ‘restitutionary damages’ to the landowner. Mesne profits can be calculated as the cost of alternative Local Authority Housing. Kennedy LJ said that in most cases the measure of damages to be paid by the trespasser in residential property will be calculated by reference to the ordinary letting value of the property in which the defendant remained. However, because the property was not normally let out on the open market and the trespasser was only in occupation because she had nowhere else to go, the value to the trespasser was different. Thus the injured party was entitled to what the trespasser would have to pay for suitable alternative accommodation, though that was more than she would have had to pay the Ministry by way of rent for the property itself.
Judges:
Kennedy LJ
Citations:
Ind Summary 03-May-1993, [1993] EGLR 102, (1993) 25 HLR 513, (1993) 66 PandCR 195
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Devenish Nutrition Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis Sa (France) and others CA 14-Oct-2008
The defendant had been involved in price fixing arrangements, and the claimant sought damages for breach of its proprietary rights. The claimant appealed refusal of an award an account of profits for what was akin to a breach of statutory duty.
Cited – Ramzan v Brookwide Ltd ChD 8-Oct-2010
The claimant owned a flying freehold room butting into the defendant’s property. Whilst the claimant’s property was unoccupied, the defendant broke through into the room, blocked off the door to the claimant’s property, and included the room in the . .
Cited – Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp and Others v Harris and Others ChD 5-Feb-2013
The court was asked whether a copyright owner has a proprietary claim to money derived from infringement of the copyright.
Held: He did not. No such argument could be shown to have suceeded before. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Damages, Housing
Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.83741