Facts
In Rylands v. Fletcher (1868) LR 3 HL 330, the defendant (D) arranged for the construction of a water reservoir on their land for use with their mill operation. Beneath the land, there were old, disused mining shafts and passages. The weight of the water in the reservoir caused the shafts to break, and water passed into the mine workings beneath the plaintiff’s (P) nearby land, flooding P’s mine and causing significant damage.
The Court of the Exchequer Chamber, in its judgment delivered by Blackburn J, explained the rule:
“The person who for his own purposes brings on his lands and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and, if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape. He can excuse himself by showing that the escape was owing to the plaintiff’s default; or perhaps that the escape was the consequence of vis major; or the act of God” (at LR 1 Exch 279–80).
Issue
The issue was whether a strict liability rule should be imposed on the defendant for the damage caused by the escape of water from the reservoir.
Holding
On appeal to the House of Lords, the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber was expressly approved. Lord Cairns emphasized that if the defendants’ use of their land involved a “non-natural condition,” such as introducing water in an unnatural manner, they were responsible for any consequences arising from the escape of that water.
He stated:
“If in consequence of any imperfection in the mode of their doing so, the water came to escape and to pass off into the close of the plaintiff, then it appears to me that which the defendants were doing they were doing at their own peril” (at LR 3 HL 339).
This affirmed the principle of strict liability in such cases.
