Fletcher v. Rylands

This was an action by a tenant coal-mine operator against the builder of a new reservoir for damages that occurred when the filling of the reservoir flooded the coal mining operation.  In the 1850s, a tenant to the Earl of Wilton leased beds of coal from Lord Wilton for the purpose of extracting the coal.  In the process of working the coal seam, the tenant came into contact with old abandoned coal workings from prior mining efforts.  Soon thereafter, defendants—who did not know about the old coal workings, or about the plaintiff’s having found any such coal workings in the course of plaintiff’s mining—began to build a dam on an adjoining part of Lord Wilton’s land for purposes of building a reservoir that would power their mill.  The defendant, everyone agreed, exercised due care in selecting competent engineers to build the reservoir.  In the course of their work, the engineers discovered that the bed was in part built on top of “five old shafts, running vertically downwards” and “constructed of timber” but “filled up with marl or soil of the same kind as the marl or soil which immediately surrounded them.”  The condition of the ancient shafts was such that the engineers did not know or suspect they were old coal mining shafts.  When the reservoir was filled with water in December 1860, one of the shafts under the reservoir bed gave way, flooding the old workings underneath.  The water flowed through into the plaintiff’s coal workings and forced the plaintiff to suspend its operations.

The trial court entered judgment for the plaintiff. On appeal, the Court of Exchequer reversed and ruled in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff then appealed to the Exchequer Chamber, which issued the following opinion.