Dalton v Angus & Co (1881) 6 App Cas 740; 46 JP 132; 50 LJQB 689;
30 WR 191; [1881-5] All ER Rep 1, 44 LT 844
EASEMENT, RIGHT OF SUPPORT, CONTINUOUS ENJOYMENT,
ADJOINING BUILDINGS, LATERAL PRESSURE
Facts
The claimants and defendants’ adjoined houses were built independently, but each had lateral support from the soil on which the other rested. This continued for more than 20 years. Then the plaintiffs’ house was converted into a coach factory. The internal walls were removed and girders were inserted into a stack of brickwork in a way that put much more lateral pressure on the soil under the adjoining house. Twenty years after the conversion, the defendants employed a contractor to pull down their house and excavate. The contractor was bound to shore up the adjoining buildings and make good all damage. The defendants’ house was pulled down and the soil underneath it excavated to a depth of several feet. As a consequence, the plaintiffs’ stack of brickwork sank and fell, bringing down with it most of the factory.
Issues
Had the plaintiffs acquired a right of support for their factory by virtue of their twenty-year enjoyment of the support?
Decision/Outcome
(1) A right of lateral support from adjoining land can be acquired by twenty years’ uninterrupted enjoyment for a building for which it is proved that was newly built or altered in a way that increased the lateral pressure, at the beginning of that time if the enjoyment is peaceable, without deception or concealment and so open that it is known that some support is being enjoyed by the building.
(2) Therefore, the plaintiffs had acquired the right of support for their factory by virtue of their twenty years’ enjoyment and can sue the defendants and the contractor for the damage.
Updated 21 March 2026
This case summary accurately reflects the decision in Dalton v Angus & Co (1881) 6 App Cas 740, a leading House of Lords authority on the acquisition of easements of lateral support by long use. The legal principles stated remain good law. The case continues to be cited as authoritative on the acquisition of a right of support for buildings under what is now the Prescription Act 1832 and at common law by lost modern grant.
Readers should note that the law of easements more broadly has been subject to Law Commission review. The Law Commission’s 2011 report Making Land Work: Easements, Covenants and Profits à Prendre (Law Com No 327) recommended reforms to the law of prescription, which would have replaced existing methods of acquisition with a single statutory scheme. Those recommendations have not been implemented as of the date of this note, so the principles in Dalton v Angus remain operative. Students should also be aware that rights of support for land (as distinct from buildings) exist as a natural right at common law and do not require prescription; Dalton v Angus specifically concerns the extended right of support for the additional burden imposed by buildings, which must be acquired.
