Similarities between public and private nuisance PDF

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Summary

This document provides: Remedies in public nuisance: personal injury supported by Castle v St Augustine’s Links (1922), Defences to public nuisance, Summary of the similarities between public and private nuisance, and a brief summary of the relevant chapter....

Description

Remedies in public nuisance: personal injury

A key difference between public and private nuisance is that damages for personal injury are recoverable in public nuisance. We have seen that private nuisance is specifically aimed at protecting the claimant’s interests in rights over land. Public nuisance is mainly concerned with unreasonable obstructions to the highway and once a claimant can show that he suffered particular damage over and above the rest of the class affected, he will be able to claim for personal injury and property damage.

Castle v St Augustine’s Links (1922)

A taxi driver was driving on the highway when he was struck by a golf ball hit from the defendant’s golf course. Golf balls hit from this particular part of the golf course constantly went onto the highway and this was held to be a public nuisance because it affected a class of persons: the users of the highway. The plaintiff succeeded because he suffered special damage (a serious eye injury) over and above that suffered by the rest of the class.

Defences to public nuisance

The defences in public nuisance are the same as those available in private nuisance but with one exception: because public nuisance is a crime as well as a tort, the defence of twenty years’ prescription is not available in public nuisance.

Summary of the similarities between public and private nuisance

They both protect against indirect interference with use or enjoyment of land.

The rules on who can be sued are the same in each case.

The same conduct may give rise to an action in both public and private nuisance.

They both require that the interference is unreasonable.

Summary

• Nuisance covers indirect interferences with use or enjoyment of land and it differs from the tort of trespass, which protects against direct interferences.

• Although public nuisance is a crime as well as a tort, private nuisance is only a tort.

• A claimant in private nuisance must have an interest in land to sue; public nuisance is not linked to the claimant’s interest in land and it protects against personal injury, which is not recoverable in private nuisance.

• In certain respects nuisance and negligence are similar because they both use the concept of reasonableness. A claimant in nuisance must show a lack of reasonable care....