Odger's English Common Law

510 PRIVATE NUISANCE.
The law as to biting or worrying animals is different, for it has been
enacted by statute that if A.'s dog bites B.'s cattle, horses, mules, asses,
sheep, goats or swine, it is not necessary in an action brought to recover
damages for B. to prove that the dog had a previous mischievous propensity.
1 All that B. has to prove is that the dog did the injury and
that the dog is the property of A. 2
The question sometimes arises whether liability should
fall on the owner or the occupier of premises which are a
nuisance. Where the owner of the premises on which the
nuisance exists is himself in occupation of them, 3 or has in
some manner participated in or expressly sanctioned the
erection of the nuisance,* liability may attach to him. Thus,
if a landlord lets premises not in themselves a nuisance, but
which may or may not be used by the tenant so as to
become a nuisance, and it is entirely at the option of the
tenant so to use them or not, and the landlord receives the
same benefit whether they are so used or not, the landlord
cannot be made responsible for the acts of the tenant,
especially where he has placed the tenant under a covenant
or agreement not to use them so as to create a nuisance.
So if a landlord grants a lease and covenants to keep the
premises in repair, he is prima facie liable for any nuisance
arising from such premises being out of repair. 6
As a general rule an owner of real property, such as land or houses, is not
" responsible for nuisances occasioned by the mode in which his property is
used by others not standing in the relation of servants to him or part of
his family. It may be that in some cases he is so responsible. But then
his liability must be founded on the principle that he has not taken due
care to prevent the doing of acts*which it was his duty to prevent, whether
done by his servants or others. If, for instance, a person occupying a
house or a field should permit another to carry on there a noxious trade,
so as to be a nuisance to his neighbours, it may be that he would be
responsible, though the acts complained of were neither his acts nor the
acts of his servants. He would have violated the rule of law, sic utere tuo
ut dlienum non laedas." 8
But where the defendants owned the soil of a stream which supplied
water to two print works, and the lessee of one of them erected a weir which
1 6 Edw. VII. c. 32, s. 1 (1).
* Baker v. Snell, [1908] 2 K. B. 826.
8 See Bishop v. Trustees of Bedford Charity (1859), 1 E. &E. 697, 714 ; Preston
v. Norfolk By. Co., #c. (1858), 2 H. & N. 735.'
1 Giclnnell v. Earner (1875), L. R. 10 C. P. 658 ; and see Nelson v. Liverpool Brewery
Co. (1877), 2 C. P. D. 311 ; Bowen v. Anderson, [1894] 1 Q. B. 164.
» Rich v. Basterfield (1847), 4 0. B. 783, 804.
« Per cur. in Eeedic v. L. $ N. W. Ry. Co. (1849), 4 Exch. 244.