Green v Lord Somerleyton

rdf:langString Green v Lord Somerleyton

rdf:langString Green v Lord Somerleyton

rdf:langString The claimant blamed inter alia the lack of renewal of the water pump replacing St Olaves windmill but its failure was expressly subject to a heavy rainfall exclusion. The claimant's farmhouse restaurant and defendant's lake are attractions in The Broads National Park.

rdf:langString John Green v Lord Somerleyton and others [trustees of a family settlement owning land neighbouring Green's land]

rdf:langString Sir Christopher Staughton

rdf:langString Easements; natural flooding; lakes; abatement of nuisance; law of mitigation of damage; declaratory relief sought; enlarged lake outside of Rylands v Fletcher type nuisance

rdf:langString Green v Lord Somerleyton is an English land law and tort law case, concerning easements of surface water/ditch drainage and the tests for nuisance in English law. In this case there was no remedy for the flooding found to be natural and not recently exacerbated by the defendant. The court attached to the properties an old, 1921, easement of drainage passing both land holdings, in this case two common examples of lowland water engineering, dykes controlled against tides by one-way valves, mentioned in the properties' deeds and, duplicatively, established the right by prescription. The dykes lay in the claimant's own land who had failed to maintain them and failed to account for the flows caused by reduction of water extraction from the lake upstream. The claimant had failed to repair the pump and clear ditches on his own land which had been agreed between the previous owners to give channelled drainage from a lake above. It was for the claimant to recognise the danger posed by its waterline being raised in 1954 by the building up of a weir.

rdf:langString Sir Christopher Staughton

rdf:langString Jonathan Parker LJ

rdf:langString Appellant failed at first instance

rdf:langString before HHJ Rich QC sitting as High Court judge