Stannard (t/a Wyvern Tyres) v Gore

Strict liability under Rylands v Fletcher requires the escape of the exceptionally dangerous thing brought onto the defendant’s land. The escape of a fire, intensified by materials which remain on the defendant’s land, does not ordinarily satisfy that requirement. A large stock of tyres at a tyre-fitting business was neither exceptionally dangerous nor an extraordinary or unusual use of land. The rule has a high threshold and is applied by reference to the time and place. Where negligence is not established, a claim for fire damage therefore fails unless the Rylands requirements are independently satisfied.

The respondent’s premises were destroyed by a fire which began in the appellant’s tyre-fitting business and intensified after reaching a large stock of tyres. The claim was brought in negligence and under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher.

The Recorder rejected negligence but held that the storage of tyres constituted a dangerous and non-natural use of land, and entered judgment for the respondent. The appellant appealed, challenging only the application of strict liability. The central issue was whether the fire, or the tyres which intensified it, constituted an escape of a dangerous thing for the purposes of the rule.

The appeal was allowed unanimously and the respondent’s claim was dismissed. Ward LJ gave the leading judgment. Etherton LJ agreed with the primary reasoning. Lewison LJ agreed with the result but expressed additional views on the historical fire cases and section 86 of the Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act 1774.

1. Classic Rylands liability. Ward LJ distilled the requirements from [2003] UKHL 61: the defendant must occupy land; bring or keep an exceptionally dangerous thing there; recognise, or reasonably be expected to recognise, an exceptionally high risk of danger if it escaped; make an extraordinary and unusual use of the land; and cause the thing to escape onto another’s land and damage the claimant’s property interest. Personal injury is outside the rule. Negligence need not be proved, subject to recognised defences.
2. Fire cases. The rule can apply to an appropriate case involving fire, but the threshold is very high. The thing brought onto the land must escape. It is insufficient that a fire, intensified by that thing, escapes while the thing itself remains on the defendant’s premises. The reasoning in [2003] UKHL 61 was not confined to non-fire cases.
3. Application. Tyres were not themselves exceptionally dangerous or readily flammable. There was no evidence that the appellant knew, or ought reasonably to have known, of an exceptionally high risk if the tyres escaped. The tyres did not escape; only the fire did. Further, storing a large stock of tyres in a tyre-fitting business was an ordinary commercial use, not an extraordinary or unusual use in the relevant time and place. Strict liability was therefore not established, and the negligence claim had already failed.
4. Additional observations. Lewison LJ considered, alternatively, that a special fire formulation requiring combustible materials likely to catch fire and spread should not be adopted. He regarded Musgrove v Pandelis as unsound in its historical reasoning and said that Mason v Levy Autoparts of England Ltd should no longer be followed. Those views were not necessary to the unanimous disposition. He also considered section 86 to exclude liability for fires beginning accidentally, while not protecting negligence or Rylands liability.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division). In [2012] EWCA Civ 1248, the court allowed the appeal and dismissed the respondent’s claim.
2. Worcester County Court. Mr Recorder Potts held on 22 August 2011 that negligence was not proved but that liability arose under Rylands v Fletcher, and entered judgment for the claimant with damages to be assessed.