Marcic v Thames Water Utilities Ltd

Ratio Decidendi

Facts

Mr Marcic's house on Old Church Lane suffered repeated internal flooding from the public foul and surface water sewer, which had become overloaded as new housing was built and connected to it over the years; nationally, sewer flooding of this kind affects thousands of properties in England and Wales every year. Because Thames Water was legally obliged to accept every new connection and could not control the volume of water entering the system, the only way to stop the flooding was to build additional sewer capacity, which Thames Water eventually did in June 2003. Mr Marcic sued Thames Water in common law nuisance and under the Human Rights Act 1998, arguing that the prolonged flooding breached his rights under article 8 ECHR (respect for home and family life) and article 1 of the First Protocol (peaceful enjoyment of possessions).

Judgment Summary

The House of Lords unanimously allowed Thames Water's appeal, reversing the Court of Appeal on both the nuisance and human rights claims. On nuisance, Lord Nicholls held that Thames Water's obligations as a sewerage undertaker could not be assessed separately from the comprehensive statutory scheme in the Water Industry Act 1991, under which complaints about inadequate drainage are for the industry regulator to resolve through an enforcement order, not for a court to convert into a common law duty to build more sewers. On the Human Rights Act claim, the House held that the same statutory scheme of priorities and regulatory oversight was itself capable of striking the 'fair balance' required by article 8 and article 1 of the First Protocol, so no separate common law or Convention remedy arose alongside it.

Key Quotes

Subsequent Treatment