Sturges v. Bridgman
High Court of Justice, Court of Appeal, United Kingdom
11 Ch.D. 852 (C.A. 1879)
A confectioner (defendant) had operated large, noisy mortars in his kitchen for over 30 years, sharing a wall with a physician's (plaintiff's) property, whose back yard had long been used only as a garden where the noise had minimal impact. When the physician built a consulting room on the site of that former garden, the mortars' noise seriously interfered with using the room, and he sued to enjoin the confectioner's operation; the Master of the Rolls granted the injunction, and the confectioner appealed.
Whether a property's occupant may state a claim for nuisance where the character of the nuisance arose only after the claimant validly altered the use of his property.