prison rules are regulatory in nature,does not give prisoners cause of action

Tort; false imprisonment -- R v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison and others ex p Hague; Weldon v Home Office

Wednesday 18 September 1991

The prisoner in the first appeal was segregated by an order of the deputy governor of the prison and was transferred to another prison for continued segregation.
The deputy governor had obtained authorisation from the Secretary of State of the Home Department of his decision.
The prisoner applied for judicial review of that decision.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court dismissed that motion.
The Court of Appeal allowed his appeal in part.
The prisoner in the second appeal brought an action in the county court against the Home Office for damages for false imprisonment by certain prison officers.
He alleged that those officers wrongly removed him from his cell, assaulted and kept him in a strip cell overnight.
The Home Office's motion to strike out certain paragraphs in the statement of claim was dismissed by the registrar.
The assistant recorder and the Court of Appeal dismissed the Home Office's appeal.
The prisoner in the first appeal and the Home Office appealed.
Stephen Sedley QC and Timothy Owen (instructed by BM Birnberg & Co) for the prisoner in the first appeal; John Laws, David Pannick and Robert Jay (instructed by Treasury solicitor) for the respondents in the first appeal and the Home Office in the second; David Harris QC and Timonth Owen (instructed by RM Broudie & Co) for the prisoner in the second appeal.
Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle said that it had always to be considered whether the enactment in question intended to confer private law rights of action on individuals in respect of breaches of the enactment.
The Prison Act 1952 was designed to deal with the administration of prisons and the management and control of prisoners.
The provisions of the Act contained nothing which showed that Parliament intended to confer on prisoners a cause of action sounding in damages for breaches of its provisions.
Furthermore, the Prison Rules 1964 were wide-ranging in their scope.
They covered matters of administration and good government of a prison.
Many of the rules did not relate to prisoners.
Those which did were never intended to confer private law rights in case of breaches.
There were no circumstances in which a convicted prisoner could sue the prison authorities for damages for false imprisonment.
Here, it was submitted in each case that it was the treatment in the prison and the alteration in the conditions which constituted false imprisonment.
But while a prisoner, lawfully committed to a prison, was in that prison his whole life was regualted by the prison regime.
He had no residual liberty which could be breached so as to constitute false imprisonment.
It could not be said that detention became unlawful when its conditions became intolerable because that confused conditions of confinement with the nature of confinement and added a qualification to s 12(1) which was not permissible.

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Water rights, principles of torts

Under the Municipal Law no private person can claim a right to foul an ordinary drain by discharging into it what it-was not intended to carry off. Where the defendant, the owner of a shellac factory, discharged into the Municipal drain, which was not constructed or intended for carrying off such stuff, refuse liquid of an offensive character, which interfered with the ordinary comfort of the plaintiff's occupation of property and caused him special injury, it was also held that the plaintiff was entitled to restrain him. Where, moreover' the defendant discharged the liquid into the drain knowing from the condition of the drain and the nature of the liquid that it could not be efficiently carried away, but must stagnate, decompose and create a nuisance, it was held, that the defendant must be responsible for the necessary consequences of his action and was not entitled to shift the responsibility on to the Municipality by contending that, if the latter would improve the drain, there would be no nuisance. It was also held that an injunction for the permanent stoppage of the nuisance was the only effectual remedy in the case. It was further held that substantial damages should be awarded against a defendant, who has persisted in a nuisance causing material injury to the plaintiff.

Madras High Court

Shanmughavel Chettiar And Ors. vs Sri Ramkumar Ginning Firm on 18 December, 1985

Equivalent citations: AIR 1987 Mad 28

Bench: Swamikkannu

JUDGMENT
1. The defendants in 0. S. No. 2 of 1976 on the file of the Court of the learned District Munsif, Srivilliputtur, are the appellants in this second appeal. They have preferred this second appeal against the Judgment and decree dt. 18th Sept. 1985 in A. S. No. 115 of 1978 on the file of the Court of the learned Subordinate Judge, Ramanathapuram at Madurai. The suit was filed for injunction to restrain the defendants appellants herein and their men not to start a brick kiln and chamber in the V schedule property. The plaintiff succeeded before the trial Court. Aggrieved by the Judgment and decree of the trial Court, the defendants preferred A. S. No. 115 of 1978 before the lower appellate Court. The lower appellate Court confirmed the judgment and decree of the trial Court and dismissed the appeal with costs. Aggrieved by the Judgment and decree of the lower appellate Court, the defendants have come forward with this second appeal before this Court.
2. The case of the plaintiff M/s. Ramkumar Ginning Firm through its sole proprietor V. L. Balasubramaniam is as follows : - In the plaint A schedule property, the plaintiff has constructed building to locate a Ginning Factory and obtained necessary licence therefore from the Panchayat Union. The defendants had purchased the B schedule property three years after the purchase of the A schedule property by the plaintiff and they are contemplating to start a brickkiln in the said property. According to the plaintiff, the proposed brick kiln in the plaint B schedule property will result in hardship since he has to store cotton and use the vacant site for the purpose of drying the cotton before ginning and the proposed brick kiln will bring about the hazard of fire in his ginning factory. It is the further case of the plaintiff that inasmuch as he has invested large capital after obtaining necessary loans from the bank for putting up construction of buildings and for locating the machineries and the proposed brickkiln business by the defendants does not involve such investments and effort, the balance of convenience is in his favour and that in the said circumstances, he is entitled to the relief of injunction.

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