One-Off Oil Spill Held Not To Represent A Continuing Nuisance

• Law Firm: Cooley LLP
• Subject Matter: Transport, Energy and Natural Resources, Oil, Gas & Electricity, Marine/ Shipping
• Author: Juan Nascimbene and Olivia Anderson
• Published date: 16 June 2023

In the recent decision of Jalla and another v. Shell International Trading and Shipping Co Ltd and another,¹ the UK Supreme Court held that a one-off oil spill did not represent a continuing nuisance regardless of the continued presence of the oil on the claimants' land.

Background

This case concerned an oil spill which occurred off the coast of Nigeria in December 2011, in which an estimated 40,000 barrels of crude oil leaked over a period of 6 hours.

The claimants, Mr Jalla and Mr Chujor, are Nigerian citizens. They brought a claim in the tort of private nuisance for undue interference with the use and enjoyment of their land, which they alleged had been severely impacted by the oil spill. The defendants were companies in the Shell group.

Procedural history and limitation

The claimants issued their claim in December 2017, just under six years after the spill. They originally brought the claim against Shell International Limited. However, in 2018, they purported to replace Shell International with Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited (STASCO) as first defendant and then made various applications to amend their claim.

STASCO submitted that, as the amendments sought were outside the six-year limitation period for tortious claims (being more than six years after the spill), they were time-barred. In response, the claimants submitted that, as the oil was still present on their land, it represented a continuing nuisance. Accordingly, they argued, their cause of action accrued fresh each day that the oil was not cleaned up.

Both the High Court of England and Wales and the Court of Appeal rejected the claimants' arguments and determined that there was no continuing nuisance. The courts held that the cause of action had accrued once the oil reached the claimants' land, that this was a one-off event and that, accordingly, the limitation period did not start afresh each day. The claimants' amended case was, therefore, time-barred.

The claimants appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's decision

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, thus confirming the lower courts' decision that the six-year limitation period had expired. In doing so, it considered the question of what constitutes a continuing nuisance and how that definition applied to this case.

What constitutes a continuing nuisance?

A continuing nuisance is one where 'outside the claimant's land and usually on the defendant's land, there is repeated activity by the defendant or...