Absolute Liability

In one line

Absolute liability is an Indian doctrine under which an enterprise carrying on a hazardous or inherently dangerous activity is liable for any harm that results, with no exceptions at all, and it is stricter than strict liability because it admits no defences.

The English starting point

The rule the doctrine replaced is the old English rule of Rylands and Fletcher, which the Supreme Court in the case below states as follows: a person who brings on to his land and keeps there anything likely to do harm is liable if it escapes and does damage. Note that the English decision itself has not been read for this book; everything said about it here is taken from the Supreme Court's own description of it.

That rule has three qualifications, and they are what the Indian Court objected to.

• It is subject to recognised exceptions, including act of a stranger, act of God, consent of the plaintiff and statutory authority.
• It applies only to a non natural user of land.
• It evolved in the nineteenth century, before the developments of science and technology.

The Indian doctrine

M. C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395, arose out of the escape of oleum gas from a unit of Shriram Foods and Fertiliser Industries in Delhi, which caused harm to people in the surrounding area. The Court had to decide the basis on which such an enterprise is liable, and whether the English rule applied.

It held that the English rule can afford no guidance in evolving a standard of liability consistent with constitutional norms and with the needs of a modern economy, that the law cannot remain static, and that the Court should not hesitate to evolve a new principle merely because it has not been evolved in England.

The principle it evolved is the sentence to reproduce.

An enterprise engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous industry which poses a potential threat to the health and safety of persons working in the factory and residing in the surrounding areas owes an absolute and non delegable duty to the community, so that if any harm results from the activity the enterprise is absolutely liable to compensate, irrespective of the fact that it had taken all reasonable care and that the harm occurred without any negligence on its part.

And the justification, which is an economic one. If an enterprise is permitted to carry on such an activity for profit, the law must presume that the permission is conditional on the enterprise absorbing the cost of any accident as an item of its overheads, since the enterprise alone has the resources to discover and guard against the hazard.