Question A The man in the street might legitimately expect the Common law to have developed a means by which persons who suffer personal injury or damage to their property due to the release of dangerous substances outside the walls of a facility would recover compensation without having to prove fault on the part of those who operate that facility.

Assess the extent to which this expectation is realised by the so-called Rule in Rylands v Fletcher as amended and restricted up to the present date. Your answer will include reference to inter alia:

●Cambridge Water Co Ltd v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 1 All ER 53 ●Transco v Stockport MBC [2004] 1 All ER 589 ●Cross 'Does Only the Careless Polluter Pay? A Fresh Examination of the Nature of Private Nuisance' (1995) 111 LQR 445 ●Nolan 'The Distinctiveness of Rylands v Fletcher' (2005) 121 LQR 421

‘He whose dirt it is must keep it that it may not trespass’[1]. This statement of Lord Justice Blackburn underpins the distinctive but ambiguous approach of the rule formulated in Rylands. Indeed the tenets of the rule in Rylands embrace a hybrid conception of nuisance that can virtually amount to the application of a negligence test within land based tort issues.
As mentioned by the wording of the essay, Rylands v Fletcher deals with the release of hazardous and dangerous substances that might damage neighbourly properties. Considering the rule in Rylands will automatically lead to the consideration of the broader tort of nuisance. Both nuisance and Rylands are land-based torts administering the issues rising from the use and enjoyment of property rights and their protection from nuisance caused by the vicinity.
French law has developed a similar rule as the one expressed in Rylands called ‘the abnormal burdens of the neighbouring’ found on the legitimacy of the claimant’s request that is assessed by the court. This was established to fill in the lacuna of the law and endeavouring