Cases - William Cory & Son Ltd v City of London Real Property Company Ltd

Record details

Name

William Cory & Son Ltd v City of London Real Property Company Ltd

Date

(1954)

Citation

163 EG 514

Keywords

Rights of light

Summary

The plaintiff owned and occupied an office building in the City of London. The defendant acquired a site on the north, intending to demolish the remaining building on the site and to erect a large office building. The plaintiff claimed an injunction preventing the construction of the new office on the basis that it interfered with its rights of light to the ground and first floors. Expert evidence was given using Waldram diagrams, which showed that the well-lit area of the affected rooms would be reduced to considerably less than 50%. The judge commented that these methods of assessing light had been used by the courts since 1922 and went on to say that:

'The practice has been heretofore to say that a room, in which the grumble line comes half way down the room, that is to say, the room is 50 per cent adequately lit and 50 per cent inadequately lit, upon the average is a satisfactory room when required for office use at any rate in a place like the City of London, where it is expected and normal that the electric light will be on at any rate for parts of the room for great parts of the day ... It may be that the standard of light, applying the tests laid down in Colls' case, will gradually increase as the years go by. For my part I am today still prepared to accept what has been called the 50-50 rule as a very rough guide as to what rooms are adequately lit.'

He held that the plaintiff had established a case of actionable nuisance and granted an injunction preventing the defendant from building so as to infringe the plaintiff's rights of light.