Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Key definition

Rylands v Fletcher definition

What does Rylands v Fletcher mean? Rylands v Fletcher describes a claim in tort/delict for damage caused when a dangerous thing, accumulated on land for a non-natural (extraordinary) use, escapes and causes foreseeable harm to another’s land. It is a case law doctrine (Rylands v Fletcher (1868)). In England and Wales, the House of Lords in Cambridge Water [1994] confirmed that the type of damage must be reasonably foreseeable, and Transco v Stockport [2004] treated Rylands as a sub-species of private nuisance. Key features include: accumulation on the defendant’s land; non-natural use; escape to the claimant’s land; and damage (generally to property or proprietary interests). Personal injury...

Private nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher: common law principles, foreseeability, continuance, Transco criteria, defences and successor liability in environmental claims

Published by a LexisNexis Environment expert

Practice notes

Private nuisance

Relevance of private nuisance in modern law

Despite the highly intricate framework of environmental regulation, private nuisance (together with other torts like negligence and trespass) occupies a significant role in contemporary environmental law. That is hardly unexpected in a Common law system where judges hold a pivotal constitutional function. Moreover, certain environmental problems sit beyond formal regulatory schemes and are not wholly captured by them. For example, the statutory nuisance scheme in Part 3 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 1990) extends only to the nuisances enumerated in EPA 1990, s 79(1), and no further; yet, where the environmental harm has ceased or been abated, a legitimate claim for damages for historic nuisance may remain, which the statutory environmental protection mechanisms do not provide or permit. The tort of private nuisance also retains weight because recent statutes, following earlier patterns of legislative reform, have continued to draw on the common law meaning and definition of nuisance—seen, for instance, in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSCA 2022), as well as in the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 and the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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