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THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN PRIVATE NUISANCE: COLLECTIVES AND COMMUNITIES IN TORT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Maria Lee
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Abstract

The relevance of public interests in private law is at the heart of some central divides in tort scholarship. This paper argues that public interests pervade private nuisance cases. The uncertain and contested nature of public interests, and the absence in both the case law and the scholarly literature of an abstract definition of what is to count as a public interest, do not prevent these matters from playing a significant role in tort. In these circumstances, it is important to reflect on how we might set about articulating the public interest. This paper argues that administrative decisions that are intended to serve the public interest can in some cases provide a defensible vision of public interest for the purposes of private law. An examination of the process by which regulatory decisions were reached can provide indicators to assist in identifying and evaluating the strength of claimed public interests.

Keywords

collective interestsnuisancepublic/private divideregulationtort
Type
Articles
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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 329 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2015 

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References

1 E.g. Hedley, S., “Looking Outward or Looking Inward? Obligations Scholarship in the Early 21st Century” in Robertson, A. and Wu, Tang Hang (eds.), The Goals of Private Law (Oxford 2009)Google Scholar; Barker, K., “Private Law: Key Encounters with Public Law” in Barker, K. and Jensen, D. (eds.), Private Law: Key Encounters with Public Law (Cambridge 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Coventry v Lawrence [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433; M. Lee, “Private Nuisance in the Supreme Court: Coventry v Lawrence” [2014] J.P.E.L. 705.

3 Historically, e.g. Hole v Barlow (1858) 140 E.R. 1113; Bamford v Turnley (1862) 3 B. & S. 66; McLaren, J.P.S., “Nuisance Law and the Industrial Revolution: Some Lessons from Social History” (1983) 3 O.J.L.S. 155CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also K. Oliphant, “Rylands v Fletcher and the Emergence of Enterprise Liability in the Common Law” in Koziol, H. and Steininger, B. (eds.), European Tort Law 2004 (Berlin 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recently, the cases that discuss the relationship between private nuisance and environmental regulation, culminating in Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, are particularly apposite; M. Lee, “Tort Law and Regulation: Planning and Nuisance” [2011] J.P.E.L. 986.

4 W. Lucy and A. Williams, “Public and Private: Neither Deep Nor Meaningful?” in Barker and Jensen, Private Law.

5 There is an enormous literature, even just in tort, on the public/private divide; see e.g. the contributions to Barker and Jensen's collection, Private Law; Priel, D., “The Political Origins of English Private Law” (2013) 30 J.L.S. 481CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Lucy and Williams, “Public and Private”.

7 See e.g. the literature discussed in section IV below.

8 For useful analysis, capturing interestingly different perspectives, see e.g. Barker, “Private Law”; Hedley, S., “Is Private Law Meaningless?” (2011) 64 C.L.P. 89Google Scholar; Cane, P., “The Anatomy of Private Law Theory: A 25th Anniversary Review” (2005) 25 O.J.L.S. 203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Most significantly Weinrib, E., The Idea of Private Law (Cambridge, MA 1995)Google Scholar; Stevens, R., Torts and Rights (Oxford 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both authors would accept (although it is probably fair to say with some suspicion) that Parliament can require private law to embrace collective interests.

10 Cane, P., “Rights in Private Law” in Nolan, D. and Robertson, A., Rights and Private Law (Oxford 2012)Google Scholar.

11 Beever, A., The Law of Private Nuisance (Oxford 2013)Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., at p. 22; and this is said to rest on the moral equality of the parties.

13 All I will add is that I am unable to agree that it is “clear” in each of the “famous cases” discussed in ch. 3, that one use (e.g. sleeping) is more “fundamental” than another (e.g. running an oil refinery); it may be so, but it is not simple.

14 Beever, The Law of Private Nuisance, p. 22.

15 E.g. E.M. Peñalver, “Land Virtues” (2008–09) 94 Cornell L.Rev. 821; W. Lucy and C. Mitchell, “Replacing Private Property: The Case for Stewardship” [1996] C.L.J. 566.

16 See Scotford, E. and Walsh, R., “The Symbiosis of Property and English Environmental Law: Property Rights in a Public Law Context” (2013) 76 M.L.R. 1010CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Beever explicitly rejects the need to examine property theory (at p. 24), in part on the grounds of its diversity.

17 For a rejection of this opposition, see Hedley, “Is Private Law Meaningless?”.

18 Posner, R., Economic Analysis of Law (Boston 1973)Google Scholar. Nuisance features heavily in the law and economics literature, from Coase, R.H., “The Problem of Social Cost” (1960) 3 Journal of Law and Economics 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Weinrib, The Idea of Private Law, p. 5.

20 Beever, The Law of Private Nuisance, p. 16; see also e.g. the discussion of “judgement” in ch. 5. Similarly, Stevens, Torts and Rights, especially ch. 14. From a completely different perspective, “The Public Interest” can be a “potentially dictatorial character”, Conaghan, J. and Mansell, W., The Wrongs of Tort (London 1999), 124Google Scholar.

21 There is a vast scholarship. See generally the contributions to Robertson and Wu, The Goals; more specifically Keren-Paz, T., Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice (Farnham 2007)Google Scholar; D. Priel, “A Public Role for the Intentional Torts” in Barker and Jensen, Private Law. Note Hedley's observation that, notwithstanding their centrality in the positioning of the private law disputants, “pure instrumentalism”, “preferring the collective good over any considerations of fairness between individual parties”, is almost impossible to find in the literature, S. Hedley, “Courts as Public Authorities, Private Law as Instrument of Government” in Barker and Jensen, Private Law.

22 Pontin, B., Nuisance Law and Environmental Protection: A Study of Nuisance Injunctions in Practice (Oxford 2013)Google Scholar. That is not to say that Pontin pursues “pure instrumentalism”; far from it. See Hedley, ibid.

23 Cane, P., The Anatomy of Tort Law (Oxford 1997), 38Google Scholar.

24 See e.g. the cases cited in Winfield, P.H., “Public Policy in the English Common Law” (1928) 42 Harv.L.Rev. 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collins, H., “The Voice of the Community in Private Law Discourse” (1997) 3 E.L.J. 407Google Scholar; Cane, P., “Distributive Justice and Tort Law” [2001] N.Z.L.Rev. 401Google Scholar; as well as the cases cited herein.

25 E.g. J. Stapleton, “Duty of Care Factors: A Selection from the Judicial Menus” in Cane, P. and Stapleton, J. (eds.), The Law of Obligations: Essays in Celebration of John Fleming (Oxford 1998)Google Scholar; Oliphant, K., “Against Certainty in Tort Law” in Pitel, S.G.A., Neyers, J.W. and Chamberlain, E. (eds.), Tort Law: Challenging Orthodoxy (Oxford 2013)Google Scholar.

26 Lee, M., “Safety, Regulation and Tort: Fault in Context” (2011) 74 M.L.R. 555CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scout Association v Barnes [2010] EWCA Civ 1476 and Compensation Act 2006.

27 Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council [2003] UKHL 47; [2004] 1 A.C. 46; Occupiers Liability Acts 1957 and 1984.

28 E.g. British Chiropractic Association v Singh [2010] EWCA Civ 350; [2011] 1 W.L.R. 133; Defamation Act 2013, s. 4.

29 E.g. Gray, K., “Property in Thin Air” [1991] C.L.J. 252CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also e.g. in contract Collins, H., Regulating Contracts (Oxford 1999)Google Scholar; in corporate law Moore, M., Corporate Governance in the Shadow of the State (Oxford 2013)Google Scholar.

30 Cambridge Water v Eastern Counties Leather [1994] 2 A.C. 264.

31 Hunter v Canary Wharf [1997] A.C. 655.

32 Marcic v Thames Water Utilities [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42.

33 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433. The three obvious omissions from this list are Transco v Stockport MBC [2003] UKHL 61; [2004] 2 A.C. 1; Delaware Mansions Limited v Westminster [2001] UKHL 55; [2002] 1 A.C. 321; Southwark London Borough Council v Tanner [2001] 1 A.C. 1. Transco is not included because it is largely an exploration of the implications of Cambridge Water and Hunter; Delaware raises the slightly different area of “natural” nuisances, with their echoes of negligence; and Southwark, whilst raising interesting issues on “a problem of considerable social importance” (p. 26, per Lord Millett), revolves around landlord and tenant law.

34 Winfield, “Public Policy”, p. 93. Historical research illuminates the significance of material beyond the text, Mitchell, P., “Patterns of Legal Change” (2012) 65 C.L.P. 177Google Scholar.

35 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [95]; planning officers properly take these issues into account, private nuisance courts do not.

36 Ibid., at para. [94].

37 Ibid., at paras. [198], [217]. Lord Clarke agreed that “the facts of such cases are so varied that it is difficult to lay down hard and fast rules”, at [169].

38 Ibid., at para. [138].

39 Ibid., at para. [96], explicitly agreeing with Lord Carnwath.

40 Ibid., at para. [124], per Lord Neuberger.

41 Ibid., at para. [125], per Lord Neuberger.

42 Respectively, ibid., at para. [124], per Lord Neuberger; at para. [239], per Lord Carnwath; Coventry v Lawrence [2012] EWCA Civ 26; [2012] 1 W.L.R. 2127, at [22], per Jackson L.J.

43 Marcic [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42, at [26], per Lord Nicholls.

44 Ibid., at para. [36], per Lord Nicholls.

45 Lee, M., “Occupying the Field: Tort and the Preemptive Statute” in Arvind, T.T. and Steele, J. (eds.), Tort Law and the Legislature: Common Law, Statute and the Dynamics of Legal Change (Oxford 2013)Google Scholar.

46 Marcic [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42, at [42], per Lord Nicholls; also at [87], per Lord Hope.

47 Ibid., at para. [63], per Lord Hoffmann; at para. [42], per Lord Nicholls. The public/private conceptualisation of the claim pervades the judgment; see e.g. at para. [35], per Lord Nicholls; at para. [71], per Lord Hoffmann; at para. [77], per Lord Hope.

48 Ibid., at para. [35], per Lord Nicholls.

49 Marcic [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42, at [33], per Lord Nicholls.

50 Marcic v Thames Water Utilities [2002] EWCA Civ 64; [2002] Q.B. 929, at [83], per Lord Phillips.

51 Hunter [1997] A.C. 655.

52 Lee, M., “Hunter v Canary Wharf (1997)” in Mitchell, C. and Mitchell, P. (eds.), Landmark Cases in the Law of Torts (Oxford 2010)Google Scholar.

53 Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, s. 134; Hunter [1997] A.C. 655, 710, per Lord Hoffmann. See Lee, ibid.

54 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the London Docklands Development Corporate (Area and Constitution) Order 1980, 5 June 1981, at [8.3] and [6.2]. The second quotation is from Government evidence to the Committee, at [6.4].

55 Wightman, J., “Nuisance – the Environmental Tort? Hunter v Canary Wharf in the House of Lords” (1998) 61 M.L.R. 870CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 More dramatically, Colour Quest Ltd. and others v Total Downstream UK plc and others [2009] EWHC 540 (Comm); Shell UK Ltd. and Others v Total UK Ltd. and others [2010] EWCA Civ 180; [2011] Q.B. 86, arising out of the enormous fires and explosions at the Buncefield oil storage depot in 2005.

57 Ibid.

58 Rickards v Lothian [1913] A.C. 263, 280, cited in Cambridge Water [1994] 2 A.C. 264, 299.

59 Cambridge Water v Eastern Counties Leather [1993] Env.L.R. 116, 139; he somewhat sardonically declined to “enter upon an assessment of the point on a scale of desirability that the manufacture of wash leather comes”, ibid. Note the speculation that local authority sewerage services may be exempted from Rylands v Fletcher liability on the basis of “general benefit”, Pride of Derby v British Celanese [1953] Ch. 149, 189, per Denning L.J.

60 Cambridge Water [1994] 2 A.C. 264, 308.

61 Ibid., at p. 309.

62 McLaren, “Nuisance Law”, p. 156. See also Oliphant, “Rylands v Fletcher”, and on tort and regulation M. Lobban, “Tort Law, Regulation and River Pollution: The Rivers Pollution Prevention Act and Its Implementation, 1876–1951” in Arvind and Steele, Tort Law.

63 St. Helens Smelting Co. v Tipping (1865) 11 H.L.Cas. 642, 650. The nature of the “compromise” is complex and contested, A.W.B. Simpson, Leading Cases in the Common Law (Oxford 1995); Pontin, Nuisance Law. This debate may alternatively be seen as playing out in the more general victory of the fault principle; see Lord Hoffmann's speech in Transco [2003] UKHL 61; [2004] 2 A.C. 1, at [29]. Note that the continued vitality (and difficulty) of this compromise persists in “coming to the nuisance” in Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433.

64 E.g. the local nuisances and broader benefits of wind farms and some waste management facilities.

65 Cambridge Water [1994] 2 A.C. 264, 305. Note that damages were sought for relocation, rather than clean up. On the misalignment between correction in tort and restoration in environmental law, see J. Steele, “Remedies and Remediation: Foundational Issues in Environmental Liability” (1995) 58 M.L.R. 615.

66 Cambridge Water [1994] 2 A.C. 264, 305. In his dissenting judgment in Hunter [1997] A.C. 655, Lord Cooke noted that “a heightened public consciousness of the need to protect the environment” is one of the factors to be taken into account “in evolving the law” (p. 711).

67 Lee, “Occupying the Field”.

68 Cambridge Water [1994] 2 A.C. 264, 309.

69 E.g. J.E. Stiglitz, A. Sen and J.-P. Fitoussi, Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (Paris 2009).

70 See the passing references to employees' interest in Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [124], per Lord Neuberger and [239], per Lord Carnwath.

71 Cambridge Water [1994] 2 A.C. 264, 308. Lord Walker in Transco [2003] UKHL 61; [2004] 2 A.C. 1 describes as “understandable” the proposition that a court may be stricter with a defendant “who has profited from a dangerous activity” than “with parties conducting similar activities for the general public good”, whilst rejecting any sort of comprehensive weighing exercise by the court, at [105], whilst by contrast Lord Bingham says that “little help is to be gained (and unnecessary confusion perhaps caused) by considering whether the use is proper for the general benefit of the community”, at [11].

72 Barr v Biffa [2012] EWCA Civ 312; [2013] Q.B. 455.

73 Ibid., at para. [31].

74 Pontin, Nuisance Law, ch. 4, discussing City of Manchester v Farnworth [1930] A.C. 171 (HL).

75 Marcic [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42, at [63].

76 E.g. King, J., “The Justiciability of Resource Allocation” (2007) 70 M.L.R. 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433.

78 Raz, J., “Rights and Politics” (1995) 71 Indiana L.J. 27Google Scholar describes “unpolluted air” as a “common good”, since everyone has a health interest which benefits from unpolluted air, which is non-competitive, and similar for everyone, albeit that not everyone benefits to the same degree. The “public interest” is distinguished from “common goods”, since the public interest is not necessarily shared by all members of society (p. 35).

79 McHarg, A., “Reconciling Human Rights and the Public Interest: Conceptual Problems and Doctrinal Uncertainty in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights” (1999) 62 M.L.R. 671CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dworkin, R., Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA 1977)Google Scholar.

80 Raz, J., The Morality of Freedom (Oxford 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 E.g. Waldron, J., “Can Communal Goods be Human Rights?” (1987) 28 European Journal of Sociology 296CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Newman, D.G., “Collective Interests and Collective Rights” (2004) 49 Am.J.Juris. 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 E.g. Green, L., “Two Views of Collective Rights” (1991) 4 C.J.L.J. 315Google Scholar. These two approaches are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive, and we might be interested in the collective goods held by collective agents, or rights held by individuals as members of groups. Newman, D.G., “Value Collectivism, Collective Rights, and Self-Threatening Theory” (2013) 33 O.J.L.S. 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Gillingham v Medway Docks [1993] Q.B. 343; R. v Rimmington [2005] UKHL 63; [2006] 1 A.C. 459 (both public nuisance).

84 Attorney General v Birmingham (1858) 4 K&J 528; Pontin, Nuisance Law, pp. 32–33, 39.

85 Pride of Derby [1953] Ch. 149. See Fish Legal, available at <http://www.fishlegal.net/default.asp>.

86 Civil Practice Rules, 19.10–19.15.

87 Anslow v Norton Aluminium Limited [2012] EWHC 2610, at [296]–[332]. Note the connection of some of these defence witnesses with the foundry (at [333]), suggesting that the interests of employees may be at stake in the litigation.

88 Hunter [1997] A.C. 655. Note also the 152 claimants in Barr [2012] EWCA Civ 312; [2013] Q.B. 455.

89 Dennis v Ministry of Defence [2003] EWHC 793; [2003] 2 E.G.L.R. 121, at [45]. Damages were awarded in lieu of injunction. The impact of noise on the broader community was not mentioned, save for a reference to efforts to coordinate complaints, at [26], and to a volume of “complaints correspondence”, at [28].

90 Long, D. and Woolley, F., “Global Public Goods: Critique of a UN Discourse” (2009) 15 Global Governance 107Google Scholar. Even national defence is a problematic public good. In principle, it is non-rival and non-excludable but, in practice, if the country comes under attack, it is perfectly plausible to exclude some areas from protection.

91 “Common pool resources” (more commonly, for tort lawyers, analysed in terms of “externalities”) and “club goods”.

92 Waldron, “Communal Goods”. Collective production in this sense can be distinguished from “participatory goods” (Réaume, D., “Individuals, Groups and Rights to Public Goods” (1988) 38 U.T.L.J. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar), in which the collective enjoyment of the good is part of the value of the good: Raz's “tolerant society” (The Morality of Freedom), Waldron's “convivial party”, ibid.

93 Hirshliefer, J., “From Weakest Link to Best-Shot: The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods” (1983) 41 Public Choice 371CrossRefGoogle Scholar draws a distinction between summation, weakest link, and best shot public goods. See also Bodansky, D., “What's in a Concept? Global Public Goods, International Law, and Legitimacy” (2012) 23 E.J.I.L. 651Google Scholar discussing Barrett, S., Why Cooperate? The Incentive to Supply Global Public Goods (Oxford 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Hence the significance of “participatory goods” in some accounts, e.g. Réaume, “Individuals”.

95 Attorney General v PYA Quarries [1957] 2 Q.B. 169, 187, per Romer L.J.

96 Rimmington [2005] UKHL 63; [2006] 1 A.C. 459.

97 Ibid., at para. [44], per Lord Rodgers. See also Colour Quest Ltd. [2009] EWHC 540 (Comm).

98 PYA Quarries [1957] 2 Q.B. 169, 191, per Lord Denning.

99 Rimmington [2005] UKHL 63; [2006] 1 A.C. 459, at [44].

100 E.g. Morgan, B. and Yeung, K., An Introduction to Law and Regulation: Text and Materials (Cambridge 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Hunter [1997] A.C. 655, 721, per Lord Cooke, dissenting.

102 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [125], per Lord Neuberger.

103 Dennis [2003] EWHC 793; [2003] 2 E.G.L.R. 121 is the only exception I can think of. In Miller v Jackson [1977] Q.B. 966, the claimant's house would have been the “regulated” part of the picture, subject to planning permission.

104 Steele, J., “Private Law and the Environment: Nuisance in Context” (1995) 15 L.S. 236, 238Google Scholar (referring to interruption of “perfectly normal profit-making … activities”, rather than collective interests).

105 See Campbell, D., “Gathering the Water: Abuse of Rights after the Recognition of Government Failure” (2010) 7 The Journal Jurisprudence 487Google Scholar.

106 McAuslan, P., “Administrative Law, Collective Consumption and Judicial Policy” (1983) 46 M.L.R. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar, examining administrative law litigation in the ideologically divided 1980s.

107 Anslow [2012] EWHC 2610.

108 Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd. [2011] EWHC 1003 (TCC); [2011] 4 All E.R. 1065, at [578], [576], [575], per Coulson J.

109 McGillivray, D. and Wightman, J., “Private Rights, Public Interests and the Environment” in Hayward, T. and O'Neill, J. (eds.), Justice, Property and the Environment: Social and Legal Perspectives (Farnham 1997)Google Scholar; Steele, J., “Assessing the Past: Tort Law and Environmental Risk” in Jewell, T. and Steele, J. (eds.), Law in Environmental Decision Making (Oxford 1998)Google Scholar.

110 Marcic [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42, at [43], per Lord Nicholls.

111 Hunter [1997] A.C. 655, 710, 701.

112 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [91].

113 Marcic [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 A.C. 42, at [38].

114 As noted by Judge Havery at first instance, [2001] 3 All E.R. 698 (TCC); see Howarth, D., “Nuisance and the House of Lords: Squaring the Triangle” (2004) 16 J.E.L. 233Google Scholar.

115 Hunter [1997] A.C. 655, 710, per Lord Hoffmann; the centrality of planning law in this case was said to be because of the novelty of a claim for loss of TV reception.

116 E.g. C. Abbot and M. Lee, “Economic Actors in EU Environmental Law” (2015) Y.E.L., forthcoming.

117 See Rydin, Y., The Future of Planning: Beyond Growth Dependence (Bristol 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 E.g. environmental impact assessment, Council Directive (EU) No. 2011/92 (OJ 2012 L 26, p. 2).

119 M. Wilde and C. Smith, “R v Pease (1832)” in Mitchell and Mitchell, Landmark Cases, p. 17, quoting Frederick Pollock, defence counsel in R. v Pease (1832) 4 B. & Ad. 30, the seminal case on statutory authority. See also Wheeler v JJ Saunders Ltd. [1996] Ch. 19, 35, per Peter Gibson L.J.

120 See e.g. Rydin, Y. and Pennington, M., “Public Participation and Local Environmental Planning: The Collective Action Problem and the Potential of Social Capital” (2000) 5 Local Environment 153CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eden, S., “Public Participation in Environmental Policy: Considering Scientific, Counter-Scientific and Non-Scientific Contributions” (1996) 5 Public Understanding of Science 183CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 Howarth, “Squaring the Triangle”.

122 Leaving to one side the debate about the proper role of cost–benefit analysis in decision-making, e.g. Ackerman, F. and Heinzerling, L., Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing (New York 2004)Google Scholar.

123 Including the impact of steam engines on horses (Wilde and Smith, “R v Pease (1832)”), the impact of Canary Wharf tower on television reception and the effects of limited investment in sewers on those at risk of external flooding.

124 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [125].

125 Wheeler [1996] Ch. 19, 36, per Peter Gibson L.J.

126 Ibid.; Watson v Croft Promo-Sport [2009] EWCA Civ 15; [2009] 3 All E.R. 249.

127 Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [223].

128 Lee, “Hunter v Canary Wharf”.

129 On which see D. Nolan, “Nuisance, Planning and Regulation: The Limits of Statutory Authority”, forthcoming. Contrary to his assertion, it is not my position that planning permission should provide such a defence. I do not want to suggest, however, that a compliance defence would necessarily amount to expropriation.

130 See the review in Scotford and Walsh, “The Symbiosis of Property”, pp. 1036–40.

131 E.g. Gray, K., “Can Environmental Regulation Constitute a Taking of Property at Common Law” (2007) 24 Env. & Planning Law Journal 171Google Scholar; Peñalver, “Land Virtues”; H. Dagan, “The Limited Autonomy of Private Law” (2007) 45 Tel Aviv University Law Faculty Papers. This is not a new debate, e.g. Hoppit, J., “Compulsion, Compensation and Property Rights in Britain, 1688–1833” (2011) 210 Past and Present 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

132 Hoppit, ibid. Kostal, R.W., Law and English Railway Capitalism 1825–1875 (Oxford 2012)Google Scholar, ch. 4.

133 E.g. Rodgers, C., “Nature's Place? Property Rights, Property Rules and Environmental Stewardship” [2009] C.L.J. 550CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

134 Gray, “Environmental Regulation”, in respect of common law.

135 Ibid. Cusack v Harrow LBC [2013] UKSC 40; [2013] 1 W.L.R. 2022.

136 Land Compensation Act 1973, s. 1.

137 Planning Act 2008, s. 152. Coventry [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] 2 W.L.R. 433, at [90], per Lord Neuberger.

138 K. Gray, “Land Law and Human Rights” in Tee, L. (ed.), Land Law: Issues, Debates, Policy (London 2002)Google Scholar discusses other ad hoc compensation arrangements.

139 Note also that the legislation is selective as to the property interests captured, Land Compensation Act 1973, s. 2.

140 During the operation of public works or nationally significant infrastructure projects, depreciation is assessed by reference to “the amount which the land if sold in the open market by a willing seller might be expected to realise”, Land Compensation Act 1973, s. 4(4)(b). Although the hypothetical nature of the inquiry means that some of the figures look fairly notional, and there is no doubt room for alternative approaches to be argued, the reports of the Upper Tribunal (Land Chamber) suggest that many of the cases revolve around the claimants' ability to establish such depreciation. Wildtree Hotels v Harrow LBC [2001] 2 A.C. allows for the valuation of temporary interference during construction works (Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, s. 10) by reference to reduced rental values. “Diminution in value” in nuisance, Hunter [1997] A.C. 655, is not limited to market value.

141 See the review of the cases in Thomas v Bridgend CBC [2011] EWCA Civ 862; [2012] Q.B. 512, per Carnwath L.J.

142 Scotford and Walsh, “The Symbiosis of Property”, arguing also that this “democratises” property.

143 The root of the distinction is found in St. Helens Smelting Co. (1865) 11 H.L.Cas. 642; the reduced value of the land was significant in that case, resonating with the previous paragraph, above.

144 Pontin, Nuisance Law.

145 Gearty, C., “The Place of Private Nuisance in a Modern Law of Tort” [1989] C.L.J. 214CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See the discussion in Murphy, J., The Law of Nuisance (Oxford 2010)Google Scholar.

146 Newark, F.H., “The Boundaries of Nuisance” (1949) 65 L.Q.R. 480Google Scholar. This is not to say that melting washing or coughing might not indicate something more urgent than amenity harm.

147 Physical damage to property is not dealt with in an absolute way in cases like Robinson v Kilvert (1889) L.R. 41 Ch. D. 88 or Hollywood Silver Fox Farm v Emmett [1936] 2 K.B. 468.

148 See e.g. Steele, J., “Scepticism and the Law of Negligence” [1993] C.L.J. 437CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cane, P., “Taking Disagreement Seriously: Courts, Legislatures and the Reform of Tort Law” (2005) 25 O.J.L.S. 393CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keren-Paz, Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice.