Legal Case Summary
Cattle v Stockton Waterworks Co [1975] LR 10 QB 453
Tort – Negligence – Injury to Real Property – Illegality – Rights of Wrongdoer
Facts
Stockton Waterworks Co laid down one of their main roads along and under a turnpike road. Private property was either side of the road. The landowner employed Cattle to make a tunnel under the road so he could access his land on the other side of the road easily. In doing so, a leak in the Waterworks’ main higher up the road was discovered. This flowed down on the work causing delays and consequential loss for Cattle.
Issue
Whether Cattle had a right to recover loss from Waterworks in circumstances where there is wrongdoing by a third party.
Outcome / Decision:
The damage sustained by Cattle by reason of his contract with the landowner becoming less profitable, did not did not give him a right of action against Waterworks. Lumley v Gye [1853] 2 E & B 216 was distinguished on the basis that the presence of malicious intention was relied upon to determine that an action would be available for maliciously procuring a third person to break a contract with the plaintiff. In the present circumstances, there was found to be no basis for saying that the defendants were malicious or had an intention to injure anyone. Their negligence did injure the property of the land owner but did not injure any property of Cattle. Therefore, Cattle had no rights of recovery for his contract becoming less profitable than he anticipated. However, had there been sufficient grounds for Cattle to claim loss, the fact that the landowner could have been indicted for nuisance to the road would not have rendered the proceedings so illegal as to prevent Cattle from recovering damages for a wrong.
Updated 19 March 2026
This case summary accurately describes the decision in Cattle v Stockton Waterworks Co (1875) LR 10 QB 453. Note that the article incorrectly gives the year as 1975 in the citation; the correct year is 1875. This is a Victorian-era authority and its core principle — that a claimant cannot recover in negligence for purely economic loss flowing from damage to a third party’s property — remains good law in England and Wales. The decision is a foundational authority in the law of negligence concerning pure economic loss and continues to be cited and applied in this context. The principle was affirmed and developed in later cases including Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v Martin & Co (Contractors) Ltd [1973] QB 27 and remains consistent with the modern approach under Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605. There have been no statutory changes or subsequent cases that have overturned or materially altered the principle established in Cattle v Stockton Waterworks. The article is therefore broadly accurate as a statement of the historical and continuing legal position, subject to the typographical error in the case year.
