ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AND
LAW OF TORTS
ENVIRONMENTAL TORTS

• Tort law focuses on bad outcomes affecting persons (both human beings and
corporations) and property.
• Tort law comes onto the scene when something has gone wrong.
• So in cases of environment, the tort law will play a role when there is environmental
damage.
• It is much more concerned with cure rather than prevention.
• It is concerned primarily with reparation and not punishment. It is one of the remedy for
environmental pollution
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND
ENVIRONMENTAL TORTS
• The key difference between environmental law and environmental torts is that regulation is
perpetuated to protect general public health, while torts are brought in order to rectify damages
caused to individual human beings.

• The difference between environmental law and environmental torts is in environmental law with
respect to hazardous waste is that the burden of proof as to whether something caused something
else is shifted.
• In torts, the plaintiff has the burden of showing that the action caused damages
REMEDIES UNDER TORT

• Tort law is based upon the principles “sic uteve two ut alininum non lex das” means so
use your property as not harm others.
• Majority of environment pollution cases of tort in India fall under four major categories:
• Nuisance,
• Trespass,
• Negligence,
• Strict Liability.
1. NUISANCE

• It means anything which annoys, hurts or that which is offensive.

• Under the common law principle, the nuisance is concerned with unlawful interference
with the person’s right over whole of land or of some right over or in connection with it.
• But for an interference to be an ‘actionable nuisance’ the conduct of the defendant must
be unreasonable.
 KINDS OF NUISANCE

• The interference may be due to smell, noise, fumes, gas, heat, smoke, germs, vibrations, etc.
• In the private nuisance, the basis of an action under nuisance is unreasonable and unnecessary
inconvenience caused by the use of the defendant’s land.
• A public nuisance is an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.
• The activities include carrying of trades causing offensive smells, intolerable noises, dust,
vibrations, collection of filth that affects the health or habitability in a locality.
 RAM BAJ SINGH VS BABU LAL (1982)

• In this case, A person built a brick grinding machine in front of the consulting chamber of a
medical practitioner.
• The machine was generating a lot of dust and noise which polluted the atmosphere and entered the
consulting chamber of the medical practitioner and caused physical inconvenience to him and his
patients.
• The Allahabad High Court held that this amounts to the private nuisance which can reasonably be
said to cause injury, discomfort or annoyance to a person.
• Exposure of unwilling persons to dangerous and disastrous levels of noise amounts to noise
pollution.
 LAKSHMIPATHY VS STATE (1992)

• In this case, the petitioners were aggrieved by the location an operation of industries and industrial
enterprises in a residential area in alleged gross violation of the provisions of the Karnataka Town
And Country Planning Act, 1961.
• The petitioners were questioning the industrial activity in a residential locality by establishing and
running factories, workshops, factory sheds, manufacture of greases and lubricating oils by
distillation process and also the production of inflammable products by the respondents.
• The Karnataka High Court directed such industries to be stopped and further held that earmarked
residential area should not be used for such industries
• The petitioners were also held entitled to costs Rs.3000/- from the respondents.
 2. NEGLIGENCE

• Negligence is another specific tort on which a common law action to prevent environmental pollution
can be instituted.
• When there is a duty to take care and the same is not taken, which results in some harm to another
person, it is amounted to negligence.
• In the action of negligence, the result is some kind of a loss, inconvenience or annoyance to another.

• The plaintiff must show

a. The the defendant was under a duty to take reasonable care to avoid the damage complained
b. Breach of the duty
c. Consequential damage which must have been factually caused by the breach of duty and must be
reasonably foreseeable as a consequence of the breach.
 NARESH DUTT TYAGI VS STATE OF UP (1955)

• In this case, Chemical pesticides were stored in go down in a residential area.

• fumes emanating from the pesticides leaked to the contiguous property through
ventilators which resulted in the death of three children and an infant in the womb of the
mother.
• It was held that it was a clear case of negligence.
 MUKESH TEXTILE MILLS VS
SUBRAMANYA SASTRI (1987)
• The appellant had a sugar factory and used to store molasses, a by-product in the manufacturing of
sugar, in tanks which were close to the respondent’s land and separated by a water channel.
• One day, one of the tanks collapsed. It emptied into the water channel and ultimately spoiled the
paddy fields of the respondent causing damage to the raised crop.
• The court held the appellant liable on two grounds. Firstly, the appellant who had stored a large
quantity of molasses in tanks had the duty to take reasonable care in the matter of maintenance.
• Secondly, liability arises whenever the land is put to the non-natural use.
 3. TRESPASS:

• It means an intentional invasion of the interests of the plaintiff over the property in his exclusive
possession. The invasion may be direct or through some tangible object.
• Two things are necessary to prove for constituting the tort of trespass.
• Intentional interference
• Such interference must be direct rather than consequential.

• An example of trespass in an environmental situation might be if a person deliberately sprays

pesticides or dumps waste on your property.
SAMMONS VS GLOVERSVILLE

• In this case , a very polluted Cayadutta Creek flowed through Sampson Sammons’ New York farm.
• Upstream, the city of Gloversville emptied its sewers and drains into the creek, fouling its waters and
depositing filth on its beds and along its banks. So, too, did the city of Johnstown, along with several
tanneries.
• Mr. Sammons went to court to restrain Gloversville from further polluting the creek or its banks.
• The trial court found that the city’s sewage disposal practices amounted to a continuing trespass that
substantially injured Mr. Sammons’ property rights.
• It issued an injunction, to take effect after one year, prohibiting Gloversville from fouling Mr.
Sammons premises by discharging its sewage into the creek.
FRIESEN VS FOREST PROTECTION LTD (1978)

• In this case , Abram Friesen, a professor at the University of New Brunswick, lived with his wife
and four children on a farm in Island View, just west of Fredericton, New Brunswick.
• In the evening Dr. and Mrs. Friesen were picking fiddleheads near a brook on their farm when
planes flew directly overhead, emitting a cloud of spray that descended on them, burning their
cheeks, causing their eyes to water, and making them cough.
• They knew that as part of New Brunswick’s spruce budworm control program, Forest Protection
Limited was spraying a pesticide formulation containing fenitrothion – a highly toxic
organophosphate.
• Just one week earlier, Dr. Friesen had asked the company not to spray his property.
• During the following weeks Dr. and Mrs. Friesen experienced a variety of physical ailments,
which they attributed to fenitrothion poisoning.
• Their 12-year-old the son suffered a protracted asthmatic attack, which the Friesens blamed on
inhalation of drifting spray.
• The Friesens sued Forest Protection Limited for damages under trespass and nuisance.
• The court held that it is unlawful to spray pesticides onto another’s land and awarded them
$1,328.20 plus taxed costs
4. STRICT LIABILITY

• The person who, for his own purpose, 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 do so is prima
facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape.
• The doctrine of strict liability is also known as the rule of no-fault liability as it considers
liability without fault on the part of the defendant and particularly this aspect of the doctrine
has significant relevance in the matters related to environmental pollution.
• It is related to variety of things like fire, gas, explosions, electricity, oil, noxious fumes,
colliery spoil, poisonous vegetation etc. this rule is equally applies to the injuries caused to
person and property.
 RYLAND VS FLETCHER (1968)

• Fletcher was running a coal mine on lease. Ryland desired to construct a water reservoir on his
land for storing water.
• R gave this job to an independent contractor. While working on the water reservoir, the workmen
belonging to the independent contractor came across some old disused shafts.
• The contractors found disused mines when digging but failed to seal them properly. When water
was filled in the reservoir, those improperly packed old disused shafts succumbed to the pressure
and water percolated through to the coal mine and Fletcher could not carry any work, thus suffered
losses.
 M.C. MEHTA VS UOI (1987)

• In this case, Shriram Food and Fertilizer Industry, a subsidiary of Delhi Cloth Mills Limited, was
engaged in the manufacture of the dangerous chemical.
• On December 1985, large amounts of oleum gas leaked from one of the units in the heart of Delhi
which resulted in the death of several persons.
• The leakage, resulted from the bursting of a tank containing oleum gas, was caused by mechanical
and human errors. It created a scare among the people residing nearby and within two days,
another leakage, a minor one, broke out as a result of oleum gas escaping from the joints of a pipe