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Show by Richard J. Maughan, B.S.. L.L.B. Other Aspects , Of the Law of Torts i In the last issue of this column ! we talked some of the degree of care required of each of us as a care required of us as members i of our society. This care and extent to which we .are required to practice it we found to depend upon the partic- Stated as an abstraction, it is ? relative. For example, ex-ample, were we f- .vJ t ' - -'if, Strict liability this abstract personality per-sonality is not our measure of whether conduct is right or wrong. This is because not all conduct which causes injury to another can be labeled with the world "fault" (as we have described de-scribed it) or have arisen from a wrongful intent. Rylands Vs. Fletcher The classic example of this strict liability facet of our legal web, is the case of Rylands vs. Fletcher. This case decided in England in the latter part of the last century cen-tury (1S6S), gave judicial birth to ' a social philosophy which would , henceforth fasten liability i to conduct which was not faulty jand which was not wrongfully in-I in-I tended, but which was actually so-jcially so-jcially desirable! I In this case, the defendant had a reservoir constructed upon his land, the work was done by independent inde-pendent contractors, who built the water tank over an abondoned coal mine, the shafts of which were filled up and had been unused un-used for years. No precautions were taken by the independent contractors, they apparently were not aware of the condition, and when the reservoir was filled the water broke through the old shaft which connected with the plaintiff's plaint-iff's adjoining mine and flooded his passages. The court allowed the plaintiff to recover for his damages,. Justice Just-ice Blackburn, of the Exchequer Chamber, saying, "We think that the true rule of law is that the person who for his own purposes brings on his lands and collects land keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it at his peril, and if he does net do so is prima facie answerable answer-able for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape." es-cape." This statement was, al-jmost al-jmost immediately, qualified by Lord Cairns in that he limited it 'to "non - natural" uses of the land. (Prima facie means that which is presumed to be just and reasonable, or correct until such presumption is overcome by evi-jdence evi-jdence which clearly shows that the presumption is not so.) The distinction of Lord Cairn's, differentiating between "natural," land "non - natural" uses of the 'land, brought with it into the more modern cases a further distinction 'between activities in which a 1 great risk is inherent and activities activi-ties which are more or less sanctioned sanc-tioned by common endeavor. Thus iattaching liability to the extraordinary extraor-dinary or "great risk" activities, but not to the others. Present Application It is no great risk to call tc one's mind how this doctrine has ibeen applied to our present j scene. With the industrial revolu-jtion revolu-jtion hard on the tail of this deci-jsion, deci-jsion, the new social doctrine found vix., activities which used gas, electricity, el-ectricity, water, explosives (blasting (blast-ing and etc.), and many others. many places to press its effect, j Jumping, as we have done, from liability for conduct because such conduct is not reasonable to! liability for conduct which may be, reasonable, could put us in mind! of what Charles Macklin, an 13th; Century playwrite put in the; 'mouth of one of his characters, "The law is a sort of hocus-pocus : science." However, if we remem-jber remem-jber that our application of reason must be in relation to the situation situa-tion in which we find ourselves, we can see that the law just vdoes not hocus-pocus you from one situation sit-uation to another. ' In the next column this doctrine of strict liability will be brought !a little closer to home. You will jsee that many of us stand in the proper relation to our situation to be strictly liable if certain facts develop. in the center of R J Maughan a large field it is j conceivable that we would conduct , ourselves in any manner we chose. However, if this particular field were congested with people,1 our. freedom of action would bej severely restricted, and we would, find it necessary to confine our! activities to those which would not; injure others. In other words, we! would exercise such degrees of care as would be reasonable under un-der the circumstances. The concept of reasonable con-' duct provides, by far, the greatest great-est number of strands in that part of the seamless web which we: call the law of torts, but tied to the ends of some of these strands, are threads which impose liabili-j ty for conduct without reference; to whether the conduct in ques-( tion was reasonable or was not; reasonable. One of these is the; facet of the law of torts which presents its face under the doctrine doc-trine called Strict Liability. j Strict Liability j This area of culpable conduct is of comparatively recent origin. To about the beginning of the twentieth century, the law of torts v? tended to limit liability to those actions wherein "fault" could be found, and "fault" "was construed to mean that kind of conduct which - was born of a wrongful intent, or - which was a departure from that which could be expected from a -reasonable man the "reasonable "reason-able man" you know, is that man who does all things in all circumstances circum-stances in conformance with the standard of conduct set by the community. I am sure, we can all agree that under that definition character, but that he seems so only when we have not stopped to . think about why he did what he does. You see, the "reasonable man" thinks, in all situations which admit of thought, and be- ' fore he does something, and for that reason we rely on him to set our standards and without him we would be lost. i However, under the doctrine of l : |