The Court considered the quantification of damages to be awarded to a business suffering under riots under the 1886 Act, and in particular whether such recoverable losses included compensation for consequential losses, including loss of profits and loss of rent, under section 2 of the 1886 Act, and if so on what basis.
Held: MOPC’s appeal succeeded. Thewording of the Act alone was not able to give a full answer, and recourse was reuired to the earlier legislation. There was no general prinsiple involved to esablish a duty of indemnity from the appellant to the victims. The 1827 Act made it clear that compensation was limited to physical damage. Subsequent stautory amendments and re-eactments didnothing to suggest an extension of that principle. Other earlier statutes had made specific provision for payment of damages to anything beyond damage to buildings, but this was absent from the 1886 Act which had not been intended to alter the basis of payment.
It was difficult to use the public policy of the common law as an interpretative tool because the statutory compensation has never sought to mirror the common law, but has created a self-contained regime for compensation for property damage caused by rioters.
Lord Neuberger, President, Lord Clarke, Lord Hughes, Lord Toulson, Lord Hodge
[2016] UKSC 18, [2016] AC 1488, [2016] 2 All ER (Comm) 483, [2016] WLR(D) 208, [2016] Lloyd’s Rep IR 411, [2016] 4 All ER 283, UKSC 2014/0165
Bailii, Bailii Summary, SC, SC Summary
Riot (Damages) Act 1886 2(1) 3(1), Riot Act 1714, Remedies against the Hundred (England) Act 1827, Criminal Law Act 1722, Malicious Injury Act 1769, Compensation for Injuries to Mills etc Act 1801, Malicious Damage Act 1812, Malicious Damage Act 1816, Seditious Meetings Act 1817, Riotous Assemblies Act 1822, Remedies against the Hundred (England) Act 1827
England and Wales
Citing:
At ComC – Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd and Another v The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime ComC 12-Sep-2013
In the lead case, Sony’s warehouse at Enfield had been severely damaged in what were said to be riots in August 2011. The court considered preliminary issues as to whether the events constituted a riot within the 1886 Act, and the extent of damages . .
At CA – Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd and Others v Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime CA 20-May-2014
The appellant had suffered damage in a riot, and, under the 1886 Act, the respondent was liable to pay compensation.
Held: The MOPC was liable to pay compensation by way of indemnity. Analysis of section 2(1) suggested compensation for loss . .
Cited – Ratcliffe v Eden et al KBD 22-Nov-1776
There had been a riot by sailors in Liverpool. The cort was asked whether the victim of a riot could recover compensation not only for the damage to his house but for also the destruction of the furniture and household goods within his house. The . .
Cited – Hyde v Cogan And Others 22-Jun-1781
After the anti-Catholic ‘Gordon Riots’ in London in June 1780, which caused extensive damage and destruction of property, including Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square, damages were claied from the local hundred. The hundred argued that the . .
Cited – Mason v Sainsbury 19-Apr-1782
A claim was made upon insurance after a riot. The court asked asked ‘Who is first liable?’ This was not an issue of chronology but of establishing where the primary responsibility lay to make good the loss. The Act laid the primary responsibility . .
Cited – London Assurance Company v SainsburyWood Immigration 28-Jun-1783
An insurance office having paid the assured the amount of the loss sustained by him in consequence of a demolishing by rioters, sued the hundredors under the stat. I G. 1, at. 2, e. 5, s. 6, in their own names. HeId by Lord Mansfield and Butler, J. . .
Cited – Yarl’s Wood Immigration Ltd and others v Bedfordshire Police Authority ComC 30-Sep-2008
The owners of the Yarslwood Immigration centre sought damages under the 1886 Act after a riot at the centre caused substantial damage.
Held: The claim failed: ‘The fact that YWIL and GSL [the appellants] were acting as public authorities . .
Cited – The Kate 1899
The Kate was totally lost in a collision with the defendants’ ship, whilst on the ballast leg of a charterparty. The issue was whether in a case of total loss as opposed to partial loss of a ship without a cargo, the plaintiffs could recover only . .
Cited – The ‘Columbus’ 9-Mar-1849
Where a vessel is sunk in a collision, and compensation is awarded by the Court of Admiralty to the full value of the vessel as for a total loss, the plaintiff will not be able to recover anything in the nature of a demurrage for loss of the . .
Cited – Hanlon v The Law Society HL 1981
The House considered the impact of the statutory charge under the 1974 Act in matrimonial proceedings.
Held: The costs in respect of which the statutory charge bit were the costs of the whole divorce proceedings and not just the financial . .
Cited – Bedfordshire Police Authority v Constable and others ComC 20-Jun-2008
The authority insured its primary liability for compensation under the 1886 Act through the claimants and the excess of liability through re-insurers. The parties sought clarification from the court of the respective liabilities of the insurance . .
Cited – St Mary’s Kenmure and Another v East Dunbartonshire Council and Another SCS 27-Dec-2012
The Court was asked whether section 10 of the 1822 Act provides a remedy to the operators and/ or the heritable proprietors of a secure unit residential facility. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Police, Damages
Updated: 13 January 2022; Ref: scu.562187