Tort Law and Nuisance: A Comparative Analysis

The given report is about tort law, which refers to a wide-ranging body of rights, obligations, and remedies that allow individuals to claim relief or compensation for damages caused by others. The report compares public and private nuisance, discussing how private nuisance can occur when one person's use of land interferes with another person's reasonable enjoyment of their own land. It provides examples from case law, such as the scenario where Wanda, a resident, claims that Mary's commercial land is causing her garden centre to be affected by air quality and noise from factories, which does not constitute private nuisance due to the nature of locality.

Introduction to Law of
Tort

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Justify, by the application of case law, the finding or not of negligence in each situation....1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
Compare, with the use of case-law, the features of private and public nuisance...................3
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
Analysing the relevant factors that would lead to a finding of or not nuisance in each case
study.......................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Law of tort is a wide-ranging body of rights, obligations and remedies applied by the
courts in civil proceeding. English Tort Law concerns the compensation for harm to people
rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interest and reputation.
The report discusses about application of case law in different cases by justifying that whether
each case is under the act of negligence or not. Further, it discusses about the comparison of case
law utilisation in both private and public nuisance.
TASK 1
Justify, by the application of case law, the finding or not of negligence in each situation
Case A:
The law of tort is concerned with civil wrongs caused by individuals and other legal
entities to any third party or persons. Tort law includes body of rights, obligations and remedies
provided to individual who suffers negligence. The tort law covers personal security, physical
health, finance, reputation and property or land owned by individuals (Van Dam, 2013).
In above case, Diana was the neighbour of both; Thomas and Clare. Diana was doing a
normal day to day chaos in which she decided to prepare her garden for the spring blooms. After
an hour of potting and digging, Diana left her spade in the garden. During that time, Diana's
neighbour, Thomas a heavy drinker, returned from pub and he picked up the spade and attacked
Clare, another neighbour. This behaviour of Thomas with Clare creates a case of negligence
under the law of tort (DeBourgh and Prion, 2012).
Negligence comes under the tort and actionable in the civil courts. In simple terms,
negligence means failure to act with due care causing harm to someone else. This may include
personal injury, damage to property and economic loss. Thomas has conducted a serious harm
and injury to Clare by hitting him with a spade. This act done by Thomas is considered to be
negligence as he has done a personal injury to Clare with the spade. Another reason to justify it
as case of negligence is that Tort law of Negligence imposed to create a general duty of care
against the neighbour. The term general duty of care refers to “You must take reasonable care to
avoids acts or omission which you can reasonable foresee would be likely to injure your
neighbour”. According to this principle, Thomas should maintain general duty of care as Clare
was his neighbour (The 3 Different Types of Tort Law, 2018).
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Case B:
In the above case, Dr Schumacher has qualified in a General practitioner degree from
Germany and is working in United Kingdom. Gene was a patient of Dr Schumacher and came
for the treatment of weight loss. Dr Schumacher has advised her to take a new type of weight
loss medicine. Drug prescribed by Schumacher has recently got a negative review in the special
Journal of Cardiology warning patients to avoid the patients. Gene was impressed by the
performance of medicine but due to her intake, she suffers with a heart attack. This creates a
serious threat to her life and case of negligence on Dr Schumacher.
Dr Schumacher was GP which implies that he was medical doctor whose duty is to treat
acute and chronic illnesses of his patient and provides preventive care as well as health related to
education. This creates a moral and professional duty over Dr to inform her patient Gene about
the harmful side effects of medicine prescribed by him. Further, Dr Schumacher requires
maintaining a duty of care which assumes that both the parties will behave professionally and
deliver advices or services up to the industry standards. Dr Schumacher fails to provide duty of
care and her client Gene suffered a death due to his actions and inactions hence he is liable for
the professional negligence (Rosser, 2014)
Further, the unprofessional behaviour of Dr Schumacher falls under the category of
Clinical negligence as it is concerned with claims against doctors and other healthcare
professionals. It is because; it includes negligence in relation to surgery, medication diagnosis
and delay in treatment, psychiatric care, counselling, dentistry and child birth.
Case C:
In the above case, Ramon has bought a new BMW and decided to test his car quality and
new features but due to his negligence, a road accident occurred which injured Sarah, another
driver. Sarah was prescribed by the doctor not to return to work for next 6 months but, she
returned back to work after completing just 4 weeks. She collapsed on the office floor 2 days
later and broken her arm. Ramon asked for claimant for her broken arm which cannot be given as
this does not make a case of negligence.
As stated earlier, negligence refers to a situation whereby a person’s actions harm other
person’s reputation, property or leads to economic loss. In the above case, nothing is considered
as an act of negligence because Sarah fells on office floor due to her weakness and for earlier
injury, she was not pushed by any third person. This signifies that it was due to her own fault,
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she causes damage to herself. Roman cannot claim for negligence because he is neither
defendant nor a claimant in the above situation (Kraakman and Hansmann, 2017).
TASK 2
Compare, with the use of case-law, the features of private and public nuisance
Nuisance is the word used to address any particular thing or person that causes annoyance
or inconvenience to an individual person. There are two types of nuisance in English law i.e.
Public and Private. These two forms of nuisance differ from each other as Public nuisance refers
to any wrongdoings which disturb a large number of citizens whereas private nuisance is related
to any disturbance that is created when the individuals were enjoying the land unlawfully (Rhee,
2012).
Public Nuisance:
Public nuisance is created when defendant’s actions affect a large number of people such
as the community as a whole. It is a criminal offence who can give a rise to a civil claim for
damages. Court proceedings for public nuisance are generally instigated by local authorities
through the Magistrates court or Crown Court. To elaborate what public nuisance means and
how laws can be applied can be understood through real case law which is as follows:
Case of R v Rimmington (2006):
In the above case, defendant Rimmington had thrown an acid house party which had
attracted a large crowd of people. The party involved very loud music that continued overnight
that was for some 12 hours. The party created a traffic and block a road leading to site and
woodlands. Further, the woodlands were in bad condition and littered with human excrement.
The defendant was accused of common offence of public nuisance and was convicted. Further,
Rimmington was sentenced to 12 months’ jail and had finned £7000.
Features of Public Nuisance:
The features of public nuisance include:
 Obstructing of highway by any individual through his/her actions and inactions. This
exempted everyday road construction or repairs if they are reasonable and do not occur
for excess of time.
 Dust emission from factories and industries creating a disturbance and problem to group
of people.
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 Noise from factories (Lens and et. al., 2013)
 Sewage leaking into rivers
Thus, the action took against defendant was correct as Rimmington has caused Public
nuisance by affecting his neighbourhood. Further, the attendees of Rimmington party have also
caused a public nuisance by littering and fouling of nearby woodlands which come under the
public property. Further, due to large gathering of crowd, an extremely heavy traffic jam was
occurred which has in turn created a lot of disturbance to people who were travelling to the site.
These elements were enough to affect a cross section of class of Her Majesty's Subjects within
the area and it was reasonable to accept them to take action to prevent it and stop this from
happening in the near future.
Private Nuisance:
It refers to continuous, unlawful and indirect interference with the use or enjoyment,
comfort and any interest that person may have over his/her land. Private nuisance can come in
the form of physical damage to property or disturbance of comfort. In order to take action against
defendant for private nuisance, the plaintiff must prove interference. To elaborate what private
nuisance means and how laws can be applied can be understood through real case law which is
as follows:
Features of Private Nuisance:
Substantial and Unreasonable Interferences:
This states that in order to prove the interference of defendants has caused private
nuisance, it must be unreasonable and substantial. The interference must cause substantial
damage to the plaintiff. Also, the interferences in claimant’s comfort must be greater than the
benefits of defendant's conduct (Goldberg and et. al., 2016).
Case law:
In above case, Woon Tan Kan, the plaintiff residents of Bukit Merah village sued the
defendant, principally for an injunction to restrain company from operating. The claimant alleged
that activities from the factory produced dangerous radioactive gases that are harmful for the
residents of Bukit Merah. Court guaranteed an injunction and held that it as a case of Private
nuisance. Further, it was held that claimant health was being affected harmfully to substantial
degree (Mujtaba and Cavico, 2013).
Remedy for Private Nuisance:
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 Injunctive Relief: Injunction is a court order that refrains an individual to conduct or
perform any activity. Court issues an injunction; it requires plaintiff to either start or stop
doing a specific action. In private nuisance, injunction refers to restrict the behaviour of
defendant by limiting the number of hours in which he can participate in an act or it can
be prohibited completely.
TASK 3
Analysing the relevant factors that would lead to a finding of or not nuisance in each case study
The term nuisance refers to a person or thing that is causing an inconvenience or
annoyance. Definition of nuisance from the perspective of English law is “Nuisance is an act
which is harmful or offensive to the public or a member of it for which, there is a legal remedy”.
The motive of nuisance law is to provide remedy and comfort to individuals who have
proprietary interests in land through the control of environmental conditions.
Case A:
In the above case, John has brought a large yard in the peaceful location in rural area.
John uses the yard to keep and maintain coaches to provide transport for school children and
organised day trips for them. Ben, a neighbour of John, complained against the actions
conducted by John. Instead of improving his behaviour, John created more noises and issues to
Ben. This act of John is a case of Private Nuisance because John’s actions and inactions have
annoyed Ben and caused disturbance in the enjoyment and comfort while using the land owned
by Ben. Further, Ben suffered from the issues of noise and diesel fumes resulting from coaches.
This act of John has made him defendant in the case of private nuisance as it is proved to
be substantial and unreasonable because it has created damages to the location along with
premises of claimant (Pereira, 2013).
Case B:
In the above case, Mary inherited a large plot of industrial land and manufacturing
facilities. Mary has handover the land to Smart Ltd for making iron cast products. Wanda,
neighbour of Mary claimed it as a case of private nuisance as she owned a residential house and
open- to- the- public garden centre adjacent to it. Some of flowers grown by her were sensitive to
air quality and she claimed for action against Smart Ltd. This does not constitute as a case of
nuisance.
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The land owned by Mary resides in commercial and industrial areas which means that
emission and noise from factories are common. Further, it does not cause any damage to the
location and premises of Wanda because the level of interferences must be balanced with
surrounding circumstances and the nature of locality must be taken into account (Pontin, 2013).
CONCLUSION
The report has concluded that Tort law refers to a wide ranging body of rights,
obligations and remedies. It allows an individual to claim from any person or legal party’s relief
or compensation for the damage caused to them. It stated about the negligence conducted by
individual that can harm or create personal injury to a person. Further, it has provided
comparison between the public and private nuisance.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
DeBourgh, G. A. and Prion, S. K., 2012. Patient safety manifesto: A professional imperative for
prelicensure nursing education. Journal of Professional Nursing. 28(2). pp.110-118.
Goldberg, J. C., and et. al., 2016. Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress. Wolters Kluwer law &
business.
Kraakman, R. and Hansmann, H., 2017. The end of history for corporate law. In Corporate
Governance (pp. 49-78). Gower.
Lens, V., and et. al., 2013. Choreographing Justice: Administrative Law Judges and the
Management of Welfare Disputes. Journal of Law and Society. 40(2). pp.199-227.
Mujtaba, B. G. and Cavico, F. J., 2013. Corporate wellness programs: implementation challenges
in the modern American workplace. International journal of health policy and
management. 1(3). p.193.
Pereira, A. G. D., 2013. Medical Liability: Comparing “Civil Law” and “Common Law”. In
Legal and Forensic Medicine (pp. 591-604). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Pontin, B., 2013. The common law clean up of the ‘Workshop of the World’: More realism about
nuisance law's historic environmental achievements. Journal of Law and Society. 40(2).
pp.173-198.
Rhee, R. J., 2012. The Tort Foundation of Duty of Care and Business Judgment. Notre Dame L.
Rev., 88, p.1139.
Rosser, M., 2014. The Welsh NHS Redress arrangements–Are they putting things right for
Welsh patients?. Clinical Risk. 20(6). pp.144-149.
Van Dam, C., 2013. European tort law. OUP Oxford.
Online
The 3 Different Types of Tort Law. 2018. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.injurylawcolorado.com/legal-library/tort-law-types.html>.
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