Exceptions to Strict Liability

In one line

Six things defeat the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher, and none of them defeats absolute liability in India.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the recognised exceptions to the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher are the plaintiff's own default, the plaintiff's consent, common benefit, the act of a stranger, an act of God, and statutory authority; the Supreme Court set out those exceptions in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India and then held that an enterprise carrying on a hazardous or inherently dangerous activity in India cannot rely on any of them.

The six exceptions

1. Plaintiff's own default. Where the escape is due to the plaintiff's own act, or where his own unusual conduct or unusually sensitive property brings the damage on himself, no action lies. The point is the same as the sensitivity rule in nuisance in chapter [Private Nuisance].

2. Consent of the plaintiff. Where the plaintiff has expressly or impliedly consented to the presence of the source of danger, and there is no negligence, he cannot complain. A tenant who takes a flat below a water tank installed for the benefit of the whole building has consented to the tank being there.

3. Common benefit. Where the thing is kept for the benefit of both the plaintiff and the defendant, the rule does not apply. This overlaps with consent, and it explains why the ordinary water and drainage installations of a building are outside the rule.

4. Act of a stranger. Where the escape is caused by the deliberate and unforeseeable act of a person over whom the defendant has no control, the defendant is not liable. The stranger must be a stranger: an act by the defendant's servant or by an independent contractor doing his work is not within the exception.

5. Act of God. Where the escape is caused by natural forces without human intervention, in circumstances so extraordinary that no human foresight could reasonably provide against them. Chapter [General Defences I] works out the limits, and Ramalinga Nadar v. Narayana Reddiar, AIR 1971 Ker 197, fixes the boundary: the acts of an unruly mob are not an act of God, because the expression covers only inevitable accidents caused by the elementary forces of nature unconnected with the agency of man.

6. Statutory authority. Where the thing is kept, or the activity carried on, under the authority of a statute, the rule may be displaced. Whether it is depends on the terms of the statute, and chapter [General Defences II] sets out the distinction between absolute and conditional authority. Statutory authority never authorises negligence.