Public nuisance

In English criminal law, public nuisance is a class of common law offence in which the injury, loss or damage is suffered by the local community as a whole rather than by individual victims.

In Kent v Johnson (1973) 21 FLR 177 203, Public nuisance is "an unlawful act or omission ... which endangers the lives, safety, health, property or comfort of the public or by which the public are obstructed in the exercise or enjoyment of any right common to all".[1] And also, Public Nuisance is a criminal offense at some common law and by statute under some states, for example in case Kent v Johnson, Criminal Code (Qld) s 230, and so on. To establish a prima facie case of public nuisance, a private individual will have to prove: (1) title to sue, (2) that the interference is with a public tight and (3) that the defendant's interference is substation and unreasonable.

In the case Walsh v Ervin [1952] VLR 361, as the general principle is usually stated, an individual cannot sue alone for relief in respect of a. nuisance to a public highway unless he has sustained some particular damage, in the sense of some substantial injury, direct and not m,erely consequential,beyond that suffered by the public generally.

In the case Attorney-General v PYA Quarries Ltd, a nuisance which is so widespread in its range or so indiscriminate in its effect that it would not be reasonable to expect one person to take proceedings on his own responsibility to put a stop to it, but that it should be taken on the responsibility of the community at large

The interference must be substantial and unreasonable in order to establish public nuisance. In modern world, daily inconveniences and annoyances are part of unreasonable and substantial interference. However, there are some examples that shows even if it could cause interference to the public, there is no public nuisance. For example, in case Maitland v Raisbeck, "it would seem that every driver of a vehicle on the road would be turned into an insurer in respect of latent defects in this machines", even if a danger was created because of moral use of vehicle. In the case Silservice Pty Ltd v Supreme Bready Pty Ltd (1950) 50 SR NSW 127, it appears that in cases of this kind if the defendant has available to him reasonable means of removing or avoiding the obstruction, he is responsible for the nuisance if he does not, adopt those means. The test is not whether an obstruction has been caused, but whether the obstruction could reasonably have been avoided: 63 L.Q.R. 147, and cf. Fabbri v. Marris.(5) I think, however, that this is not the sole test of whether a person is responsible for the nuisance caused by the assembly of a crowd of people, and that a more absolute liability rests upon the person whose business involves the gathering together of a crowd, or who, apart from any consideration of the bona fide conduct of his business, deliberately continues to gather the crowd.

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