Tate & Lyle : Pure Economic Loss and the Modern Tort of Public Nuisance

Authors

  • J. W. Neyers Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law, Western University, Canada.
  • Andrew Botterell Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and Department of Philosophy, Western University, Canada.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/alr444

Abstract

Professor Lewis Klar criticizes the Canadian approach to the tort of public nuisance for

being illogical and incoherent. The authors agree with Klar’s assessment of the current state

of public nuisance law, but argue that insights drawn from the House of Lords decision in

Tate & Lyle Industries Ltd. v. Greater London Council offer a way forward. By

conceptualizing the tort of public nuisance as a cause of action that protects subjects from

suffering actual loss that is consequential on the violation of their passage and fishing rights

over public property, Tate & Lyle offers a coherent and restrained formulation of the tort

of public nuisance. This article examines the Tate & Lyle approach to public nuisance and

applies it to two infamous Canadian public nuisance cases. It concludes that the coherent,

logical approach to public nuisance articulated by the House of Lords in Tate & Lyle should

be readopted by Canadian courts.

Downloads

Published

2016-09-24

Issue

Vol 53, No 4: Special Issue: Tort Law

Section

Articles

License

For Editions following and including Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

For Editions prior to Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

Author(s) retain original copyright in the substantive content of the titled work, subject to the following rights that are granted indefinitely:

  1. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to produce, publish, disseminate, and distribute the titled work in electronic format to online database services, including, but not limited to: LexisNexis, QuickLaw, HeinOnline, and EBSCO;
  2. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to post the titled work on the Alberta Law Review website and/or related websites.
  3. Author(s) agree that the titled work may be used for educational or instructional purposes and/or in educational or instructional materials. The author(s) acknowledge that the titled work is subject to other such "fair dealing" provisions and applicable legislation.
  4. Author(s) grant a limited license to those accessing the titled work from an electronic database or an Alberta Law Review website to download the titled work onto their computer and to print a copy for their own personal, non-commercial use, subject to proper attribution.

To use the journal's content elsewhere, permission must be obtained from the author(s) and the Alberta Law Review.

Most read articles by the same author(s)