Inglis v. Shotts Iron Co

Factual and Procedural Background

Company A held long mineral leases over several neighbouring estates. A condition in those leases prohibited surface operations within a wide buffer around the lessor’s mansion-house, but imposed no similar restriction at the marches with Plaintiff’s estate. In March 1877 Company A began “calcining” ironstone in open heaps (“bings”) at three sites situated immediately to the south of Plaintiff’s plantations. Heavy sulphurous smoke was said to drift across the boundary and linger among the trees.

After an initial application for interim interdict in 1877, the parties compromised: Company A undertook to confine calcining to the winter months of November, December and January, reserving all substantive rights. When winter calcining continued in 1878-80, Plaintiff alleged that damage to his plantations had greatly increased and, on 30 October 1880, raised the present action for declarator of nuisance and a permanent interdict prohibiting calcining within two miles of his lands.

The Lord Ordinary heard an extensive proof, found that the smoke had substantially injured the plantations and, on 18 March 1881, granted decree interdicting calcining within one mile of Plaintiff’s march. Company A reclaimed (appealed) to the Inner House (Second Division).

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether Plaintiff had proved, on the balance of probabilities, that smoke from Company A’s calcining operations caused substantial injury to his plantations.
2. If injury were proved, whether Plaintiff’s sole remedy lay in damages, or whether he was entitled to a prohibitory interdict restraining calcining within a specified distance.
3. Whether, notwithstanding proven injury, calcining at the chosen sites was a reasonable and necessary use of Company A’s mineral rights that should not be restrained.

Arguments of the Parties

Plaintiff's Arguments

• The plantations were healthy until calcining commenced; immediately thereafter the conifers displayed classic symptoms of sulphur poisoning.
• Scientific tests (rain-water analysis and iodine indicators) and “smoke plans” showed sulphurous acid reaching the plantations in harmful quantities.
• Nuisance is established once substantial physical damage is proved; the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas applies. Interdict, not damages, is the appropriate remedy.

Company A's Arguments

• Damage was not caused by smoke but by natural factors—poor drainage, overcrowding, inclement seasons and pests.
• Any sulphur emitted was too slight to injure vegetation beyond 400 yards, whereas many affected trees stood 1,000 yards away.
• The surrounding district was already industrial; Plaintiff could not insist on a rural standard of air purity.
• Even if minor injury were proved, the proper course was an award of damages; prohibiting calcining would cripple the mineral workings and the local iron industry.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The majority (Judge Justice-Clerk and Judge Craighill) treated the case as turning purely on fact. Giving particular deference to the Lord Ordinary who had heard the witnesses, the Inner House held:

• Plaintiff’s witnesses proved that his trees were healthy before 1877 and deteriorated immediately after calcining began, establishing a compelling causal sequence.
• Observation records and “smoke plans” demonstrated that sulphurous fumes repeatedly drifted over the plantations; chemical tests, although imperfect, corroborated the presence of free acid in quantities capable of harm.
• The defence theory of natural causes was unconvincing because it could not explain the sudden, widespread onset of injury coinciding with calcining.
• Evidence that some nearby trees survived did not negate liability; variability in susceptibility was expected.
• Given the proven damage, Plaintiff was entitled to protection. Company A’s choice of sites—within a few hundred yards of the march while vast areas farther from the boundary remained unused—was a voluntary business decision and did not outweigh Plaintiff’s right to undamaged plantations.
• The appropriate safeguard was an interdict extending one mile from the boundary—a distance selected, admittedly somewhat arbitrarily, as necessary to prevent further harm.

Dissenting, Judge Young accepted that some trees near “Incline No. 1” had suffered but considered the overall evidence inconclusive. He would have required additional proof on whether the chosen calcining sites were “convenient and reasonably selected” in the interests of both parties and, pending that proof, would not have granted interdict.

Holding and Implications

INTERDICT AFFIRMED.

The Court adhered to the Lord Ordinary’s interlocutor, declaring that Plaintiff’s plantations had been injured by Company A’s calcining and prohibiting any calcining within one mile of Plaintiff’s boundary. Costs were awarded to Plaintiff.

Implications: Company A must relocate or redesign its calcining processes outside the one-mile zone, absorbing the associated commercial inconvenience. The judgment reinforces established Scottish and English principles that industrial activities causing material physical damage constitute a nuisance actionable by interdict, even where the activity is common, useful, and economically significant. No novel doctrine was created, but the decision serves as a prominent application of traditional nuisance law to mining operations.