Mowan is by the by, but your background is interesting. Pity about the adoption argument – I can see the basis for that.

I am still waiting to see a judgment for the Hounslow case before I can comment with any confidence. Mowan sounds like a very different set of facts from this new case. In Mowan we were dealing with the council’s failure to take action to evict or control a nuisance neighbour. That neighbour had mental health problems. The Housing Department would normally have taken action against the neighbour but the Social Services Department who were supporting the neighbour were able to veto these. We were trying to argue that in doing so the council were adopting the nuisance. This argument failed.

Although they rejected her claim the Judges were sympathetic to the considerable nuisance which Ms Mowan was subjected to by the neighbour. It is all a long time ago now but I think that the public law action concerned the failure of the council to take action to stop the nuisance. There was also the suggestion that an action might lie under the Human Rights Act which had not been in force when the proceedings were issued. Unfortunately after seeing her case go all the way to the House of Lords and fail Ms Mowan could not face any further litigation and so we did not explore these two avenues.

I’ve just noticed that Mowan was a Flack & Co case. Any views on this Hounslow case in relation to Mowan, William?

Alternatively there is the possibility of public law proceedings against the Council. I do not believe that such proceedings are necessarily bound to fail, by a long chalk. But that is only a matter of first impression, without the benefit of argument.

What sort of proceedings would these be?

Apologies if it’s an obvious answer

It does appear to be negligence based – although granted negligence is rejected in Mowan et al. But there, negligence is taken as nuisance by another name’, so again, perhaps at least in part distinguishable if one is not making it as a ‘landlord liable for tenant’s nuisance’ claim?

I can’t figure it out yet, though.

I suppose one point of distinguishing may be that this was not a nuisance caused by other tenants, so not a landlord being liable for his tenant’s nuisance.