LAW 2107 CIVIL LIABILITY

Law 2107 Civil Liability

Law 2107 Civil Liability

Law 2107 Civil Liability

Law 2107 Civil Liability Coursework 2, Term 2 (2011) “Public and private nuisance...have little in common except the accident of sharing the same name” (Harpwood, 2005, 58).

- Prof. Conor Gearty, 'The Place of Public Nuisance in a Private Law of Tort', Cambridge Law Journal (1989), p.214-242, at p.214

(a) Discuss this statement, illustrating your answer by reference to the case law. (50%)

Word count: 1078

Nuisance, in regulation, is an advance that, without lawful justification, hinders with security, solace, or the use of property. A personal nuisance (e.g., erecting a partition that closes off a neighbour's light) is one that sways one or a couple of individuals, while a public nuisance (e.g., carrying out a disorderly house) sways numerous persons. In some situations the casualty of a personal nuisance may abate it (e.g., rip down the wall). Damages are accessible to a party who bears from a personal nuisance or who is particularly hurt by a public nuisance and enclosures will topic injunctions contrary to extending nuisances. Since public nuisances are injurious to the community, they may be prosecuted as crimes. Nuisance is a flexible lawful category. Thus, while a slaughterhouse is lawful in a constructing locality, it may be a nuisance in a residential quarter. Activities, for example functioning explode furnaces, one time regarded nuisances, are now identified as vital and lawful.

Public and private nuisances that affect the enjoyment of property are not always easy to abate. But courts have substantial leeway to determine if the nuisance exists and what the appropriate legal remedy should be. However, affected citizens can create an effective nuisance deterrent by suing the offender for monetary damages.

What's bothering you? A nearby smoky factory? A smelly city sewer works? A neighbour's barking dog? A trash-filled vacant lot? A noisy airport? An apartment building where drug dealers congregate? A noisy late-night dance hall? A house of prostitution? (Hodge, 2004, 88).

These are just a few examples of public and private nuisances for which neighbours have been paid damages, successfully abated, or reduced in intensity. But abating nuisances often isn't easy (Hodge, 2004, 88).

For example, a few years ago the neighbours of the 36-unit Lew Apartments in Berkeley, Calif., got fed up with the illegal drug sales and shootings in and around the building. Repeated police visits didn't bring results. Pleas to the building owners proved ineffective. Then the neighbours banded together and individually sued the owners in Small Claims Court for allowing a public nuisance to continue. The $218,325 total damages award was upheld. The Court of Appeal remarked that a public nuisance becomes a private nuisance when it interferes with free use and enjoyment of property (Lew vs. Superior Court (Byrd), 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 42).

- Public nuisances affect a large number of people.

When a large number of people are affected by a nuisance, such as a smelly city dump, a noisy airport, or an offensive factory, that phenomenon is a public ...