Strict Liability — The Rule in Rylands v Fletcher — Law of Torts Notes

Strict Liability — the Rule in Rylands v Fletcher

In 1860s Lancashire, a mill owner named Rylands built a reservoir on his land. Beneath it, unknown to him, lay disused mine shafts connecting to his neighbour Fletcher’s coal mine. The water broke through and flooded the mine. Rylands had employed reputable engineers and was personally blameless in every respect. He was still made to pay — and the law gained a new principle: some activities are so dangerous that you answer for the consequences whether or not you were careful.

Liability without fault, but not without limits

The rule as stated by Blackburn J is that a person who, for his own purposes, brings on his land and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril; and if he does not, he is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape. Lord Cairns added the requirement of non-natural use of land.

A. The three essentials.

All three must be present:

A dangerous thing. Something likely to do mischief if it escapes — water in bulk, gas, electricity, explosives, fire, noxious fumes, and (in decided cases) even a flag pole or a fairground chair-o-plane.
Escape. The thing must escape from the place where the defendant had control to a place outside it. If the injury occurs on the defendant’s own premises, the rule does not apply and the plaintiff must prove negligence (Read v J. Lyons & Co., 1947 — an inspector injured by a shell exploding inside the factory).
Non-natural use of land. The use must be special and bring increased danger to others, not the ordinary use of land for the general benefit of the community. Storing water in a domestic cistern is natural; storing it in a large reservoir is not.

B. The exceptions — half the marks in the question.

Almost every version of the question says “with exceptions”. There are six:

Plaintiff’s own default. If the escape is due to the plaintiff’s own act, he cannot complain.
Act of God. An extraordinary natural event (Nichols v Marsland, narrowed by Greenock).
Consent of the plaintiff — express or implied, as where a common water supply benefits both parties.
Act of a stranger over whom the defendant had no control (Box v Jubb, 1879), unless the defendant ought to have foreseen and guarded against it.
Statutory authority, where the act was authorised and done without negligence.
Common benefit — where the thing was maintained for the benefit of both plaintiff and defendant.

C. How far the rule has been modified.

This is the second half of most questions, and the answer is the ladder from Unit 3’s introduction:

In England, the rule has been narrowed. Read v Lyons required escape; Cambridge Water Co. v Eastern Counties Leather (1994) added a requirement of foreseeability of the type of damage, so the rule is now treated largely as a species of nuisance.
In India, the rule was expanded instead. M.C. Mehta v Union of India (1987) discarded Rylands for hazardous enterprises and created absolute liability with no exceptions — Topic 8.

🧩 WORKED EXAMPLE — the rats from the bone-manure heap

Facts. The defendants manufacture bone manure and keep heaps of bones on their premises. The heaps attract large numbers of rats, which go onto the plaintiff’s neighbouring land and eat his corn.

Rule. Rylands v Fletcher requires a dangerous thing, brought and kept on the land for the defendant’s own purposes, a non-natural use of land, and an escape.

Apply. The bones were brought and kept for the defendants’ own commercial purposes — but the rule fails on the escaping thing. What escaped was not the bones; it was rats, wild animals which the defendants never brought, collected or kept. A person is not answerable under Rylands for the escape of something he never accumulated. These are the facts of Stearn v Prentice Bros (1919), where the defendants were held not liable.

Decoy. The obvious causal link — no bone heaps, no rats — which invites the conclusion that the defendants must answer for what their heaps attracted.

Note the limit. Stearn also rejected the claim in nuisance — but note the ground carefully, because it is causation, not public benefit. The business had been carried on unchanged for some thirty years and the heaps were no larger than before, so the plaintiff could not show that the increase in rats was due to anything the defendants had done. (Public benefit is never a defence to nuisance — see Shelfer in Topic 6.) Change the escaping thing to the manure itself, or to its noxious effluent, and Rylands applies directly.

Conclusion. The claim fails — under Rylands for want of an escape of anything the defendants kept, and in nuisance as well (Stearn v Prentice Bros).

Blackburn J in Rylands v Fletcher (1868): “The person who, for his own purposes, brings on his lands and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape.”

In Simple Terms: if you deliberately gather something dangerous on your land for your own benefit, you take on the risk of it getting out. Being careful is not the point — keeping it in is.

flowchart TD
    R["RYLANDS v FLETCHER — strict liability"]
    R --> E1["Step 1 — A DANGEROUS THING likely to do mischief if it escapes"]
    E1 --> E2["Step 2 — ESCAPE from the defendant's control (no escape = no rule: Read v Lyons)"]
    E2 --> E3["Step 3 — NON-NATURAL USE of land (Lord Cairns)"]
    E3 --> L["LIABILITY WITHOUT FAULT"]
    L --> X["EXCEPTIONS: plaintiff's default · Act of God · consent · act of a stranger · statutory authority · common benefit"]
    L --> M["MODIFIED: England narrowed it (Read v Lyons; Cambridge Water). India EXPANDED it into absolute liability (M.C. Mehta)"]

Case Laws

[C-15] Rylands v Fletcher (1868) — the foundational rule of strict liability.
Read v J. Lyons & Co. (1947) — no escape, no rule.
Nichols v Marsland (1876) — Act of God as an exception.
Box v Jubb (1879) — act of a stranger as an exception.
Stearn v Prentice Bros (1919) — rats attracted to bone heaps; no escape of anything the defendants kept, and no nuisance.
Cambridge Water Co. v Eastern Counties Leather (1994) — foreseeability of the type of damage required in England.
Rickards v Lothian (1913) — ordinary domestic water supply is a natural use.
T.C. Balakrishnan v T.R. Subramanian (1968) — an exploding firework display; the rule applied in India.

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