Tort Law

Rylands v. Fletcher

(1868) LR 3 HL 330

Facts

• Rylands owned and operated a mill.
• He decided to construct a large reservoir on his land to supply water to the mill.
• Independent contractors were employed to construct the reservoir.
• Beneath the proposed site were old and disused mine shafts.
• The contractors discovered some shafts but failed to appreciate or report that they connected with neighbouring mine workings.
• Rylands himself was not proved personally negligent.
• After the reservoir was completed and filled, water escaped through the old shafts.
• It travelled underground into Fletcher’s neighbouring working mine.
• Fletcher’s mine was flooded and suffered extensive damage.
• Fletcher sued Rylands.
• The case required the courts to decide whether liability could arise despite the absence of proved personal negligence.

• Whether a land occupier may be liable without proof of negligence when an accumulated substance escapes.
• What kind of use of land attracts strict liability.
• Whether the independent contractors’ involvement relieved Rylands of responsibility.

• A person who, for his own purposes:
o brings onto land;
o accumulates or keeps there;
o something likely to cause mischief if it escapes;
o makes a non-natural or extraordinary use of the land; and
o allows the thing to escape,
is prima facie liable for the natural consequences of the escape.
• The rule imposes strict liability and does not depend upon proof of ordinary negligence.
• The claimant must establish an escape from the defendant’s area of control to another place.
• Traditional defences include:
o the claimant’s own fault;
o consent or common benefit;
o act of a stranger;
o statutory authority; and
o an extraordinary Act of God.
• Later cases added reasonable foreseeability of the relevant kind of damage and confined “non-natural use” to exceptionally dangerous or extraordinary uses.

• Rylands deliberately accumulated a large quantity of water where it was not naturally present in that form.
• A reservoir of that scale created a special danger if the water escaped.
• The water did escape from Rylands’s land through the mine shafts and entered Fletcher’s mine.
• Fletcher had not consented to the accumulation and had not caused the escape.
• The fact that independent contractors constructed the reservoir did not defeat liability.
• Rylands had introduced and maintained the hazardous accumulation for his own commercial purposes.
• The House of Lords distinguished between:
o ordinary or natural use of land; and
o a special use introducing an increased danger to neighbouring property.
• The reservoir was classified as non-natural in the circumstances.
• Because the rule was strict, Fletcher did not need to prove that Rylands knew of the hidden shafts or had personally failed to inspect them.
• The risk associated with the accumulated water was allocated to the person who introduced it.

• The House of Lords affirmed liability against Rylands.
• Accumulating the reservoir constituted a non-natural use of land.
• The water escaped and damaged Fletcher’s neighbouring mine.
• Liability arose despite the absence of personal negligence.
• The decision created the foundation of the rule of strict liability for dangerous escapes, although later authorities significantly narrowed its scope.