Vanderpant v Mayfair Hotel Company
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1930 |
| Year | 1930 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
Nuisance - Obstruction of Public Highway - Access to Private Dwelling-house - Private Resident's complaint as to Obstruction by Vehicles - Private and Public Rights - Attorney-General's Position - Nuisance by Noise from adjacent Property - What constitutes an actionable Nuisance by Noise - Claim for Injunction.
The defendant company built a large hotel, including a kitchen, close to the plaintiff's private residence and with windows overlooking the plaintiff's premises; and a hitherto quiet highway, with very little traffic passing over it, became a busy street with vehicles constantly coming and going in connection with the defendants' hotel business. These vehicles made use of a very small yard adjoining the plaintiff's house, opening into the street, and the roadway there became congested at times. In consequence, the plaintiff complained of nuisance: (a) by obstruction of access to his residence; (b) by depriving him of reasonable use of the public highway; (c) by noise proceeding from the defendant company's kitchen, and other noises caused by the hotel staff going off duty late at night:—
Held, on the result of the authorities, that a private individual who seeks to restrain the obstruction of a public highway must, in order to maintain his suit, prove that he has sustained particular and substantial and direct damage beyond the general inconvenience and injury to the public.
Held, as regards the complaint of noise, that noise will create an actionable nuisance only if it materially interferes with the ordinary comfort of life, judged by ordinary plain and simple notions, and having regard to the locality; the question being one of degree in each case.
Injunction granted on this head; in the case of the noise from the kitchen in general terms, but, as regards the noise arising from the departure of the hotel staff, limited to the hours between 10 P.M. in the evening and 8 A.M. in the morning. The plaintiff having failed on the other issue, no costs.
ACTION.
The following statement of facts is substantially taken from the judgment of the learned judge, with some abridgment of the correspondence.
The plaintiff was the owner and occupier of the premises No. 62A Curzon Street, Mayfair, London, which he had occupied since 1919. The house was a private dwelling-house, being the last house on the north-east side of Curzon Street, and adjoined the site of the Mayfair Hotel, which belonged to the defendant company. Curzon Street at that end was a cul-de-sac so far as vehicular traffic was concerned, but there was an exit from it for foot passengers through Lansdowne passage into Berkeley Street. When the plaintiff first acquired his house, the site of the Mayfair Hotel was comprised in and formed part of the gardens of Devonshire House, and there was no exit from those gardens into Curzon Street. There was no doubt that at that time, and until building operations were begun on the Devonshire House site, the end of Curzon Street in which the plaintiff's house was situate was an exceptionally quiet and peaceful spot with but little traffic passing over it, though, like the rest of Curzon Street, it was, and remained, a public highway.
In or about June, 1926, the defendant company acquired a site on part of the Devonshire House garden, and erected thereon a large hotel — namely, the Mayfair Hotel. The hotel was so planned and erected that there was an entrance to it opening into a small yard of an area of approximately 220 square feet, which in its turn opened into Curzon Street. The entrance from Curzon Street into this yard was by a gate about 10 feet wide. This entrance was made with the approval and consent of the Westminster City Council as the Highway Authority within the said City under and by virtue of an agreement dated September 29, 1926, made between the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the City of Westminster of the one part and the defendant company of the other part. The agreement provided by clause 1: “Conditionally upon the exact observance and performance by the licensee of the stipulations on the part of the licensee hereinafter contained the Council hereby agree to construct across the pavement of Curzon Street aforesaid a carriageway crossing having the dimensions and occupying the position shown on the plan hereto annexed being a crossing to give access for vehicles to the service yard of the property intended to be called ‘The Mayfair Hotel.’” Clause 3: “The licensee covenants with the Council to use every endeavour to secure that the delivery or removal of goods by way of the crossing shall be confined to the early hours of the morning and further that the licensee will exercise the utmost care to prevent any undue noise arising from the use of the crossing to the detriment or inconvenience of adjoining residents.” Clause 7 provided: “The Council may at any time on giving one calendar month's notice in writing to that effect to the licensee at the last known address of the licensee aforesaid and without any notice upon the licensee ceasing to be in occupation of the Mayfair Hotel remove the said crossing and the cost of such removal and of restoring and making good the said pavement and the adjoining carriageway and of all incidental works shall on demand be repaid by the licensee to the Council and the Council shall not be responsible for any injury or damage to the premises or goods of the licensee arising from any of the matters aforesaid.”
By an earlier agreement dated March 30, 1926 (hereinafter more fully referred to in the judgment of the learned judge), and made between a Mr. A. O. Edwards, who was merely a trustee for the defendant company of the site for the then proposed hotel, of the one part, and the plaintiff of the other part, it was (inter alia) in effect agreed that the defendant company should not block up any of the windows in the eastern wall of No. 62A Curzon Street adjoining the site, and would only make use of so much of the wall as was necessary for the building then in course of erection on the site; nor would they seek to acquire any rights of light over the site of No. 62A Curzon Street.
Before the agreement of September 29, 1926, was entered into and certainly afterwards, it appeared that the plaintiff from time to time complained of the obstruction caused to his house by the bringing of building and other materials to the hotel. The first complaint made by the plaintiff to the defendant company and adduced in evidence was contained in a letter dated January 11, 1927. It was addressed to the secretary of the defendant company, and it dealt exclusively with obstruction “of the front of this house by vehicles delivering goods to or removing same from the service entrance of the Mayfair Hotel in Curzon Street. I shall be obliged if you will see that the front of my house is not thus obstructed and also that the crossing to the service yard is used only in accordance with the terms of the agreement between the Westminster City Council and the Mayfair Hotel Company.” On January 13 this was answered by the managing director of the defendant company, who promised to use every effort to cause as little nuisance as possible during the remainder of the deliveries of the furniture for the hotel, and added: “We hope to open the hotel by the end of March, and you may be quite sure that the agreement which I entered into on behalf of this Company with the Westminster City Council, which is operative when the hotel commences to run, will be observed so far as possible both in the letter and in the spirit.” The plaintiff wrote again to the managing director on March 24, 1927, and complained that in fact there had been continual obstruction by vehicles serving the hotel, and threatened to take action if the obstruction continued after the opening of the hotel. That letter was answered on the same day by the managing director of the defendant company by a letter in which he said: “I have your letter of even date. It is a source of great regret to me that you feel you have cause for complaint, but I do not think you can realise the magnitude of our enterprise and the difficulties we have had to cope with in equipping and furnishing an hotel of this size …… When we are finally opened, as we shall be at the end of this week, I feel sure you will have no reasonable cause for complaint,” adding renewed expressions of regret and promise of endeavour to avoid annoyance.
The hotel was opened for business on March 28, 1927, and on April 28, 1927, the plaintiff again wrote to Sir Francis Towle, the managing director. The letter dealt with the plaintiff's complaint as to noise as well as obstruction, but the part relating to obstruction only was as follows: “I duly received your letter of March 24, 1927, and I have to thank you for the intention therein expressed of doing everything possible to minimise the nuisance I complained of. The hotel has now been open for four weeks, and I confess I have been able to detect very little evidence of this intention having been carried out, and I must say emphatically that the hotel as at present conducted very seriously interferes with the reasonable quiet enjoyment I am entitled to at my house. The disturbances commence before 6 o'clock in the morning with the delivery of the milk and continue with the removal of the kitchen refuse, empty bottles, house refuse, etc., the delivery of the ice, mineral waters, beer, and general food supplies. The east end of Curzon Street has every appearance of being used as the goods yard of the hotel. Vans stand side by side to deliver or receive goods which, while waiting to be disposed of, are dumped on the highway, and there is practically a continuous procession of men in front of my house carrying the goods to the hotel yard or in the reverse direction...
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