Swaine v The Great Northern Railway Company: 25 Jan 1864

Occurrences of nuisance, if temporary and occasional only, are not grounds for the interference of the Court of Chancery by injunction, except in extreme cases. Therefore, where a railway company carried down to and deposited on a siding to their line manure which was occasionally not proper manure, and they occasionally allowed it to remain there longer than it ought to have remained : Held, in a suit by a neighbouring landowner for an injunction to restrain the nuisance and for damages:
1. That the court would not interfere by way of injunction.
2. That the Court would not enter into the question of damages, the case being one which, in the judgment ofthe Court, could be more effectually disposed of at law than in equity, and Sir Hugh Cairns’s Act (21 and 22 Vict. c. 27) only giving the Court of Chancery jurisdiction to give damages in any case where a bill is properly filed in it, while Mr. Rolt’s Act (25 and 26 Vict. c. 42) does not make it compulsory on the Court so to do.

[1864] EngR 173, (1864) 4 De G J and S 211, (1864) 46 ER 899
Commonlii

Nuisance, Equity, Litigation Practice

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.281887