KIRIT P.

MEHTA SCHOOL OF LAW

(KPMSOL) 2021 – 2026
B.A.LL.B.(Hons.) Semester – 1

TORT ASSINGMENT
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE NUICENSE
Submitted By: Balveer Godara
Submitted To: Deepika Chhangani, Professor (NMIMS)

FY.BA.LLB
Roll Number: B057
SAP ID: 81012100247

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 INDEX
1.Introduction
2.Research question
3.Research objective
4. Analysis: I. Difference between nuisance and
trespass
ii. public nuisance, cases of public nuisance
iii. Private nuisance, cases of private nuisance
iv. Difference between public and private nuisance

5. Conclusion
6. References

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 INTRODUCTION
NUISANCE: As a tort, nuisance refers to an unauthorised interference with a person's use or
enjoyment of land or a right in connection with it. In general, an annoyance is something that
irritates – a continual irritation that wears on the nerves. It can make you angry and disrupt
your comfort and peace of mind. In a regulatory setting, the term "nuisance" refers to
anything that infringes on one's legal rights. The word nuisance deprived from French word
'nuire' and latin word 'nocere' which in legal sense implies "annoyance " and "damage".
According to Salmond " the wrong of nuisance consist in causing or allowing without lawful
justification the escape of any deleterious thing from his land or from elsewhere into
possession of the plaintiff, water, gas, electricity, animals.
Stephen defined nuisance to be " anything done to hurt or annoyance of land, tenements of
another, and not amounting to trespass”1
The nuisance law tries to strike a balance between opposing interests, such as when one
person believes he should be able to use his land in any way he wants while his neighbour
believe he should be able to enjoy his land in peace.
nuisance is two kinds: 1. private nuisance
2. public nuisance

RESEARCH QUESTION:
1. What is difference between nuisance and trespass
2. Difference between public and private nuisance

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:
In this research paper we are going to complete study of nuisance, its historical background,
and detail analysis of public and private nuisance with some case laws

ANALYSIS:
1.The term "nuisance" differs from "trespass," which is defined as "physical direct
interference" with the plaintiff's possession of land or possession of some substantial and
tangible property. Both nuisance and trespass are similar in that the plaintiff must establish
that he owns the area in question. Trespassing is interfering with another person's land
ownership. There is an interference with a person's use or enjoyment of land when there is a
nuisance. There could be such interference with use or enjoyment without any interference
with possession. For example, a person can annoy his neighbour by emitting an objectionable
odour or making a loud noise on his own property. Furthermore, interference in trespass is
always some substantial or tangible item. Intangible things such as gas, scent, noise, and

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http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/825/Nuisance:-A-Tort.html

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electricity can be used to cause annoyance. Apart from the fact that the trespass is actionable
in and of itself, it is in action for nuisance special damage has to be proved.

2.Public nuisance; A public nuisance affects the entire public, not just one person or a
group of citizens. A private citizen hurt by a public nuisance has no civil remedy, even if his
or her harm was greater than that of others; a criminal prosecution is the only option.
However, if the individual suffers harm that is not common to the general public, the
individual may pursue damages in a tort case. For example, if dynamiting has thrown a
massive boulder into a public highway, users of the route will not be able to continue a
nuisance action to compensate for the inconvenience. A motorist who is injured as a result of
colliding with the boulder, on the other hand, may file a tort action for personal injuries. The
question is whether the number of people impacted for an injunction of issue. A public
nuisance or common nuisance is one that materially affects the reasonable comfort and
convenience of life of a class of the public who come within the sphere or neighbourhood of
its operation. The word "public nuisance" refers to a wide range of small crimes that
endanger the community's health, morals, safety, comfort, or welfare. Violators may face a
criminal penalty, a fine, or both. A defendant may also be ordered to remediate a nuisance
that is interfering with public health. For example, if a manufacturer pollutes a stream, the
manufacturer may be penalised and ordered to pay for the clean-up costs. Public annoyance
can have a negative impact on public health, such as the harbouring of a dead animal or the
spread of malaria. Blocking highways or creating conditions that make travel dangerous or
unpleasant is another kind of public nuisance.

Cases of public nuisance –

1. DR. RAM RAJ SINGH v. BABULAL: The defendant built a brick grinding machine on
the same property as the plaintiff, who was a medical doctor. In this situation, there is a brick
limb near a medical clinic that belongs to Babulal, and the brick grinding machine generated
dust, which fouled the air. Plaintiff he had been proved and a permanent injunction and
special damages against the defendant restraining him from running his brick grinding
machine there after dust entered his consulting chamber and accused him of physical
inconvenience to him and his patients, as well as their red coating on clothes caused by dust,
plaintiff he had been proved and a permanent injunction and special damages to the plaintiff
against the defendant restraining him from running his brick grinding machine there.
2. ROSE v. MILES: The defendants miles closed one canal, causing a public nuisance, and
the defendant incorrectly moored his barge over a public navigable crack. Plaintiff had to
spend a lot of money downloading cargo and transporting it by land. To support the plaintiff's
claim, it was determined that he suffered special damages. ruling was yes, here defendant is
liable and question is could a private claimant seek for damages due to annoyance effort on
the expense of delivering merchandise by route. It was held that there were special damages
caused to support his claim.
3 CAPBELL v. PADDINGTON CORPORATION: The plaintiff was the owner of a London-
based building. The funeral procession of King Edward VII was to pass from a highway
directly in front of the plaintiff building, with an unobstructed view of the procession from
the plaintiffs' windows. Before the date of the procession, the plaintiff accepted certain
payments from certain people and allowed them to sit in the first and second floors of her

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building. Before the date of the procession, the defendant corporation built a stand on the
highway in front of the plaintiffs building so that its members and guests could see the
procession. The plaintiffs' building's view was now impeded by this structure. The plaintiff
was deprived of lucrative contracts for letting seats in her building as a result of the
obstruction. She walked away from a lawsuit against the corporation, claiming that the
highway structure, which was a public nuisance, had caused her special loss, and it was
determined that she was entitled to compensation.

Private Nuisance: A private nuisance is an encroachment on someone's pleasure and

usage of their property. The law recognises that landowners, or people in legal possession of
land, have a right to the property's undamaged condition as well as appropriate comfort and
ease in its use. There are numerous examples of private annoyances. Vibration or blasting
that ruins a house; destruction of crops; elevation of a water table; or pollution of soil, a
stream, or an underground water supply are all examples of nuisances that interfere with the
physical state of the land. Foul scents, toxic gases, smoke, dust, loud noises, excessive light,
or hot temperatures are examples of nuisances that interfere with an occupant's comfort,
convenience, or health. Furthermore, a nuisance can disrupt an occupant's mental well-being,
such as a neighbour with a nasty dog, even if no injury has happened. Private mischief is a
civil offence. It affects a single person or a defined group of people in their enjoyment of a
private privilege that is not shared by the public. It is stated that a private nuisance exists only
when someone is damaged in a relationship to a right that he or she has as a result of owning
an interest in land. All injuries to the owner or occupant in the enjoyment of property of
which he or she is in possession, regardless of the quality of the tenure, are considered a
private nuisance. The law recognises that proprietors who are legally entitled to or in
possession of land have a right to the property's undamaged condition and reasonable comfort
in its occupation.
Elements of a private nuisance
(I)The intervention must be unreasonable or unlawful. It is in a manner that the act should not
be justifiable in the eyes of the law and any act which no reasonable man performs.
(ii)Such interference has to be with the use or enjoyment of land, or of some rights over the
property, or it should create physical discomfort and disturbance on a large ground.
(iii)There should be damage to the property in order to form a private nuisance2.

Cases of private nuisance:

HEALTH v. MAOR OF BRIGHTON: A church was next to the local electricity generator
and the church was complaining about the noise. The claimants brought a claim in the tort of
nuisance, seeking a suit for injunction to restrain noise coming from the generator. The court
refused to give an injunction in favour of the incumbent and trustees of the church to stop the
defendant's owner-station from emitting " a buzzing noise ". It was determined in this case
that the loudness did not cause inconvenience to anyone other than the incumbent, nor was it
such that it might divert the attention of regular churchgoers. According to the court, if you
are praying quietly, you will hear the noise, but if you are going about your business as usual,
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you will not hear it and it will not annoy you. As a result, the court determined that this was
not a nuisance. The church was extremely sensitive, and it is their exceptional demand for
silence that is the source of the problem.
STRUGES v. BRIDGMAN: The defendant was a confectioner whose shop stood directly
across the street from the claimant's residence. Every day from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m., the
defendant employed a loud pestle and mortar. This went on without protest for more than two
decades. The claimant then built a consulting room at the end of his garden for his medical
practise. Noise and vibration from the defendant's activities began to disrupt the claimant's
work at that moment. In order to get an injunction, the claimant filed a nuisance lawsuit. The
noise, according to the defendant, was not a nuisance. Alternatively, he claimed that because
of the extended use, he had gained a prescriptive easement to produce noise if the noise was a
nuisance. A doctor relocated to a confectioner who had been selling sweets from his kitchen
for many years. For his proposed private practise, the doctor built a small hut. He constructed
the shed on the property line. The loud noise from the confectioner's industrial Morales and
pestles, on the other hand, could clearly be heard, interfering with his usage and pleasure of
his land. The claimant was found to be correct by the Court of Appeal. The defendant's
actions were inconvenient. Because his activities only became a nuisance after the claimant
erected the consultation room, he did not have a prescriptive easement to produce a nuisance.
This was too new to be prescribed. There was no means for the claimant to halt the noise
before that, so there could be no easement. There was an annoyance, and the fact that the
doctor had ‘moved to the annoyance' did not absolve the annoyance. There was no easement
that the confectioner had earned through extended use that allowed him to continue his
operations. What constitutes a nuisance was to be determined on a case-by-case basis, taking
into account the specific location. What is not a nuisance in one region may be a nuisance in
another, and it would be unjust if the nuisance maker had been allowed to continue the
nuisance eternally and without the authority of law to stop it if this was to be regarded a
privilege earned through lengthy usage.

Difference between public and private nuisance; In some cases, the same set of
facts can result in responsibility in both types of nuisances, despite the fact that the two types
of nuisances are extremely different. The term "private nuisance" refers to an occupier's right
to protest unlawful interference with his enjoyment or use of his land. The parties to a private
nuisance lawsuit are typically neighbours in the common sense, and the court must strike a
balance between the competing rights of the landowner to use and enjoy his property as he
sees fit and the right of the neighbour not to have his use or pleasure of land interfered with.
Public nuisance is a crime, but it can be sued in tort if the claimant suffers special damages in
addition to the general damages incurred by the public. The main difference between the two
is the extent of the harm done and the number of persons who are harmed. A public nuisance
is an infringement of a right that is shared by the entire community or a large portion of it.
Often, public annoyance is considered a criminal offence, but in rare cases, it can be dealt
with in tortious terms. While a private nuisance claim can be made by one or more people, a
public nuisance claim can be made by any number of people.
A person is guilty of a Public Nuisance who does any act or is guilty of an illegal omission
which effect any common injury, danger or annoyance to the public or to the people in
general who stay or occupy the property in the locality, or which must necessarily cause

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injury, obstruction, danger or annoyance to persons who may have occasion to use any public
right. (Section 268 Indian Penal Code)3
A private nuisance may be defined as an unlawful intervention with another’s use and
enjoyment of property or someone’s right over or in relation with the property. (Private
nuisance is not defined in the Indian Penal Code)4

CONCLUSION:
The distinction between public and private nuisance is crucial for a variety of reasons. It
determines, above all, whether or not you have standing. Unless an exception exists, an
individual does not have standing to suit for public nuisance. The primary exception is if you
are hurt in a way that differs from the type of harm sustained by the general public. A private
nuisance is a civil wrong, which means that those who have been wronged should seek
damages. A public nuisance, on the other hand, is occasionally categorised as a criminal
violation, and it can result in civil or criminal fines, but it normally requires the intervention
of a city attorney or another public official to bring a case against a public nuisance.

References:
1. https://www.toppr.com/guides/legal-aptitude/law-of-torts/nuisance-as-a-tort/
#:~:text=Unlike%20public%20nuisance%2C%20a%20private,both%20and%20not%20an
%20indictment.
2. https://lawcorner.in/nuisance-meaning-difference-between-public-and-private-nuisance/
3. https://blog.ipleaders.in/what-you-need-to-know-about-public-and-private-nuisance/
4. http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/825/Nuisance:-A-Tort.html
5. https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=nuisance%20cases
6. Winfield tort 19th edition
7. https://www.lawnn.com/public-nuisance-private-nuisance/ 7

3
https://www.srdlawnotes.com/2017/03/distinction-difference-between-public.html
4
https://www.srdlawnotes.com/2017/03/distinction-difference-between-public.html