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: Lord Gough said that the storage of chemicals on industrial premises should be regarded as an almost classic case of non natural use

Facts: There was a fault in the electrical wiring of a business premises and it set fire to a pile of tyres. The tures increased the ferocity of the fire and the fire then spread to the claimant's premises next door.

Held: The court said that the rule in Rylands v Fletcher doesn’t apply because the defendant had not brought the fire onto his land, although he did bring the tyres but they did not escape

Held: The court said that to rely on the defence of an 'act of god', that act of god must be beyond all foreseeability i.e. circumstances in which no human foresight can provide against and of which human prudence is not bound to recognise the possibility. The case mentions the flood was one of extraordinary violence, but floods of extraordinary violence must be anticipated as events that are likely to take place from time to time

Facts: The claimant tended a booth at a fair belonging to the claimant. She was hit by an escaped chair from a chair-o-plane

Held: The court said she could sue for that under the tort of Rylands v Fletcher because the neighbouring attraction was a non natural use of land and it was something that did risk causing mischief if it escaped (although, arguably, it didn't really 'escape' because it never left the fairground. This case, therefore, suggests you can recover if you are an occupier of land who suffers personal injury as a result of something escaping

Facts: An employee was injured in an explosion at a munitions factory.

Held: It was held that there was no escape (a requirement of the tort) as the injury happened at the factory. Although other torts (e.g. negligence) were still avaialble. Viscount Simon (at168) in the case said that escape involves an “escape from a place where the defendant has occupation of or control over to a place which is outside his occupation or control”

Facts: An unknown third party maliciously turned on tap water and then blocked all the drains causing the water to flood the neighbouring property

Held: The defendant was not liable because the escape was caused by a third party.

Facts: In this case the police were chasing an armed psychopath who had locked himself in a gun shop. The police fired CS gas canisters into the shop, causing an explosion and a fire, which damaged the building.

Held: The court held it was trespass by firing the gas canister deliberately onto another’s land. If they had dropped the canister on their own land and the gas had drifted into the gun shop then that might have fallen under the tort in Rylands v Fletcher

Facts: The defendant independently contracted to build a reservoir. The contractors negligently failed to block up the claimant's mine which was situated below the land. The water from the reservoir subsequently flooded the mine

Held: The defendant was not negligent or vicariously liable as he had employed contractors. However, the court said that the defendant was liable anyway under this new rule the court made. The court decided, in this case, that the defendant had brought water to his land in a non-natural use of that land (because water in such quantities is unnatural). As water is likely to do mischief if it escapes - and this water did escape out of the reservoir and down the mineshafts - the defendant was liable for all the damages that were a natural consequence of that mistake.

Held: In this case Lord Bingham said the defendant must use the land in a way which is “extraordinary and unusual in that time and place” to qualify as an unnatural use of the land