Businesses and the public can now sue water companies over sewage pollution, Supreme Court rules
Erin Bradbury - 22 July 2024
At the beginning of this month, the Supreme Court handed down yet another climate-related landmark ruling. This time, the decision was made in response to water companies that might be responsible for dumping sewage. According to a 2021 High Court ruling, sewage dumping was officially an issue for regulators to handle and not the courts but now, companies and the public can sue for damage caused to their property by sewage pollution. A decade or so ago, the Manchester Ship Canal Company started its attempts to bring a trespass claim against water company United Utilities over 121 alleged sewage outfalls within its networks. According to the Good Law Project, the water company discharged untreated sewage 97,500 times last year, adding up to a whopping 650,000 hours.
Taking on the ruling, the Environmental Law Foundation (supported by the Good Law Project) argued that legal options should be available for people directly affected. This case escalated all the way to the Supreme Court where it was found that the 1991 Water Industry Act doesn’t prevent companies from bringing a claim for trespass when a canal is polluted by sewage waste, even without evidence of deliberate negligence or misconduct! Why? Discharge of sewage waste is actionable under common law, and the 1991 Act doesn’t exclude those rights of action.
As Jennie Walker, interim head of legal at the Good Law Project states, “this is a sensational victory. It gives us stronger legal tools to turn the tide on the sewage scandal and hold water companies to account, after repeated failures from our toothless and underfunded regulators.” As such, this ruling means that owners of waterways now have the power to bring legal action against water companies, so this could potentially be the start of further legal action within this realm.