Facts: The government passed a statute setting up an oil refinery

Held: The Court said that any activity which was necessary as a consequence of it being an oil refinery was excused from liability for nuisance

Facts: In this case, the claimant was complaining about building work going on next door

Held: The Court said that some building work is inevitable as buildings need repair/maintenance/building. However, the building works must be reasonable, so if there is too much dust and noise he may have a claim in nuisance

Facts: A tenant of flats complained of noise from the upstairs flat. The issue was that the council had renovated the flats with wooden flooring which made the noise from upstairs louder than it should be. The tenant wanted the landlord to do something about it.

Held: The court said the tenant couldn't complain as the people upstairs are acting normally (i.e. they were just walking within their flat). The court said what they are really complaining about is that there is not enough sound insulation – so in that case, the downstairs tenants get what they pay for

Facts: A pig farm was making an awful smell. The claimant sued for nuisance

Held: The claimant had to put up with that smell for 12 years and so received damages for £8000

Facts: Pickles offered to sell land to the local council, but they refused. So Pickles dug a well into his land and drained all the water as it came through his land, so none of the water ended up in the local council's hands.

Held: The court held he was not allowed to do this because the defendant had acted with malice. However, note, most commentators do not agree with the outcome of this case

Facts: Eastern Counties (a company) were using chemicals that seeped through the floor of their building into the water supply of Cambridge Waters - so the drinking water was being contaminated.

Held: The court held that the chemicals seeping though the floor was not foreseeable, so it certainly wasnt foreseeable that the chemicals would have made its way into the water supply. Therefore, they were not liable for nuisance.

Facts: In this case, there were 2 adjoining houses. In one house, two women gave music lessons to pupils as part of their job. This led to the guy next door writing to them nasty letters complaining about the noise. He then got annoyed and and started to bang on the wall whenever the women were doing their lessons. The teachers therefore sued the man for nuisance.

Held: The court founded in favour of the women i.e. the man was guilty of nuisance. The man had made noise “deliberately and maliciously for the purpose of annoying the [claimants]”

Facts: A man owned a farm next to an RAF base which made a lot of noise

Held: The court said they wont just grant an injunction and shut down the RAF as they are doing an important job. But the court acknowledged that the burden of having an RAF shouldn’t fall on just the claimant and should be a burden everyone should face. So, the court was willing to award a substantial amount of damages – he got £1million.

Facts: In this case, there was a disused naval dockyard and the local council wanted to regenerate this area and turn it into a commercial dockyard. This caused a lot more noise and traffic in the area.

Held: The court held that it was not a nuisance because this is now the character of the neighbourhood - the nieghbours cannot simply hold back changes because they do not like it!

Facts: Over a period of time small parts of the national trust's land fell onto Leakey's land, but nothing was done about it. One day it all collapsed and damaged Leakey's land quite badly

Held: The court held the national trust could have reasonable have stopped it, so they are liable for nuisance

Facts: This is an interesting case. Esso had an oil depot and they were using it 24/7. Halsey had a house nearby and was complaining abut the noise of trucks driving by

Held: The court said it was nuisance, despite the fact that the trucks were driving by (on the road) and not on Esso's land itself. In other words, despite the requirement that nuisance must emanate from land belonging to that person, there was nuisance found here

Facts: A church was next to the local electricity generator and the church was comoplaining about the noise.

Held: The court said, if you are having quiet prayer of course you are going to hear that noise, but if you are going about your life in a normal everyday way then you won't hear the noise and it won't bother you. Thus, the court said that this wasn't nuisance. The chuch was being unusually sensitive - it is their unusual need for silence that is causing the problem.

Facts: Emmett owned a big plot of land and he had plans to build on it, then sell it off and make lots of money. THe man next door to him wished to start breeding silver foxes and sell their fur. Emmett did not like that as he thought that would devalue his land. Emmett decided to shoot around the boarder of his land during the foxes' breeding

Held: The court said that you can shooot on your land all you like, but he was only doing so in order to make a noise and ruin the farm next door - therefore, the shooting was seen as malicious and a nuisance

Facts: When Canary Wharf was being built people were complaining it interfered with their TV reception

Held: The court said that you cannot complain over the fact that someone has built something on their land - so it was not a nuisance

Held: If you move next to a stadium you have to expect a reasonable amount of noise. However, an injunction was placed against the staium to reduce the amount of noise it made

Facts: There was a build up of gas which caused a gas explosion

Held: The court said that the buiold-up of gas was a 'state of affairs', meaning that they could sue the defendant for private nuisance. This is quite a creative judgment but it does not really reflect what is going on as the owners did not foresee the explosion nor did they know there was a build-up of gas. It is likely that if this case were decided today it would not fall within the remit of private nuisance

Facts: Morris complained that electromagnetics from train-tracks, close to his house, were intefering with his recording studio equipment (for his business). Network Rail argued, however, that the interference was not foreseeable

Held: The court agreed with Network Rail i.e. the interference from the electromagnetics was not foreseeable so there was no nuisance. So, although there was interference, and this interference was by a state of affairs, it wasn’t a nuisance because the effect wasn’t foreseeable

Facts: The defendant, who was being sued, had the basement of a building. The work he was doing needed the basement to maintain really high temperatures, which caused the flat above to get quite warm. The flat above was being used to make paper and the heat, from

Held: The court said that this was not a nuisance because they have especially sensitive paper → if they were making normal paper it wouldn’t have been a problem and if they were doing anything normal in there then the heat wouldn’t have been a problem

Facts: There was a monastery with a big chunk of land, which included a drainage ditch. Trespassers (the council) came onto the land and interfered with the drainage ditch to modernise it. They interfered in such a way that it was blocked. When it subsequently rained, the rain did not drain properly and flooded the nieghbouring land.

Held: The court held that this was a nuisance

Facts: The claimant bought a house in the industrial part of a town so you have to expect a certain amount of industrial processes occuring i.e. there will be a certain level of pollution, smell, and noise. Nevertheless, this does not mean the factories can do what they want. The claimant here was complaining that because of the factories his plants were dying

Held: The court held that the fact the claimant's plants were dying goes beyond what is reasonable. Despite the claimant living in an area where he should expect a certain level of pollution/inconvenience the court held this goes too far and is not acceptable/unreasonable - thus, this was a private nuisance.

Held: The court held that interference on another's land must be "more than fanciful, more than mere delicacy or fastidiousness" and it must be "an inconvenience materially interfering with the ordinary comfort of human existence"

Facts: A farm got planning permission to be extended, but the smell was very bad and the neigbour sued.

Held: The court held that living next to a farm you have to expect some smell but this goes beyond reasonable – so despite having planning permission this was still a nuisance. The court took the stance that "the simple grant of planning permission cannot be taken, ipso facto, to license what would otherwise be a nuisance". This case certainly appears to work contrary to the case of Gillingham Borough Council v Medway Dock [1993]