(Supreme Court of Ireland) Legislation providing for compensation for malicious injury causing actual damage to property, payable out of public funds. Mr Purcell caught eels in a river, not being the owner of the land over which the river ran nor, so far as the report discloses, holding any right such as a profit a prendre of fishery. He put the eels into a large wooden box, referred to as a trunk, floating in the river and secured to the bank by chains. He kept the eels there, alive, until there were enough of them to take to the market for sale, a process which Johnston J on the first appeal from the circuit court described as involving acquisition of the eels per industriam. In his absence, a third party destroyed the trunk, thereby releasing the eels from their captivity back into their natural element. A claim for compensation was made for the loss of the eels, which so far as the evidence went had not themselves been injured in any way but certainly ceased to be the subject of any proprietary rights on the part of Mr Purcell when they escaped from captivity.
Held: It was a situation in which animals had been taken or reduced into possession, giving the taker rights arising from the possession, which however lasted only for so long as the possession did. Mr Purcell was able to get at eels in the trunk readily and with ease in order to take them on the next stage of their journey to market. Until the destruction of the trunk he had rights over the eels per industriam, without having had any rights ratione soli.
[1939] IR 115
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Borwick Development Solutions Ltd v Clear Water Fisheries Ltd CA 1-May-2020
Only Limited Ownership of pond fish
BDS owned land with closed fishing ponds. They sold the land to the respondents, but then claimed that the fish, of substantial value, were not included in the contract. The court as asked whether the captive fish were animals ferae naturae or . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 12 September 2021; Ref: scu.650626
