Sturges v Bridgman

판결 이유

사실관계

A confectioner had used heavy mortars and pestles in his premises for over 20 years. A doctor built a consulting room at the end of his garden, adjacent to the confectioner's premises. The noise and vibration disturbed the doctor's practice. The confectioner argued he had acquired a prescriptive right through long use.

판결 요약

The Court of Appeal held that the confectioner's use of his mortars and pestles became an actionable nuisance to the doctor only when the doctor built his consulting room close to the boundary and the noise and vibration first interfered with the use of that room; before then there had been no actionable interference. Because time for acquiring a prescriptive right — a right by twenty years' use to continue what would otherwise be a nuisance — runs only from when the activity first becomes an actionable nuisance, the confectioner had acquired no such right, even though he had used the machinery for more than twenty years. It was no defence that the doctor had 'come to the nuisance'. Thesiger LJ also emphasised that whether an interference amounts to an actionable nuisance depends on the character of the locality — 'what would be a nuisance in Belgrave Square would not necessarily be so in Bermondsey'. The doctor was granted an injunction. The case is a leading authority on both the locality principle and prescriptive rights in nuisance, and was revisited by the Supreme Court in Coventry v Lawrence.

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