Wheeldon v Burrows

Wheeldon v Burrows
Court	Court of Appeal
Full case name	Wheeldon v Burrows
Decided	17 June 1879
Citation(s)	(1879) LR 12 Ch D 31; [1874-90] All ER Rep. 669; (1879) 48 LJ Ch 853; (1879) 41 LT 327
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Thesiger LJ
Keywords
Easements; implied easements

Wheeldon v Burrows (1879) LR 12 Ch D 31 is an English land law case on the implying of grant easements. The case established one of the three current methods by which an easement can be acquired by implied grant, and has effectively been put into statutory force by section 62 of the Law of Property Act 1925.

Mr Allen owned a piece of land and a workshop in Derby, which had windows overlooking and receiving light from the first piece of land. He sold the workshop to Mr Burrows, and the piece of land to Mr Wheeldon. Mr Wheeldon's widow (Mrs Wheeldon, the plaintiff) built on the piece of land, and it obstructed the windows of Mr Burrows' workshop. In response, Mr Burrows dismantled Mrs Wheeldon's construction, asserting an easement over the light passing through Wheeldon's lot. Mrs Wheeldon brought an action in trespass.

Thesiger LJ held that because the seller had not reserved the right of access of light to the windows, no such right passed to the purchaser of the workshop. So the buyer of the land could obstruct the workshop windows with building. He said the following.

Both of the general rules which I have mentioned are founded upon a maxim which is as well established by authority as it is consistent with common sense, viz., that a grantor shall not derogate from his grant....

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