Legal Case Summary
Entick v Carrington [1765] EWHC KB J98
Summary: An individual’s rights over their property
Facts
On 11th November 1762 the defendant and three other named individuals entered a property belonging to the claimant and spent four hours there searching all of the rooms, breaking open boxes and going through all of the claimant’s possessions. They then removed one hundred charts and one hundred pamphlets from the property. The defendants asserted that they were lawfully entitled to enter the property because they were doing so under a warrant from Lord Halifax, who was a member of the Privy Council and Secretary of State, with a view to finding certain seditious papers and that such warrants had been granted and enforced since the time of the revolution. The claimant sued in trespass.
Issues
The issue in this circumstance was whether the defendants were trespassing when on the claimant’s land, but ultimately the issue related to whether a private individual’s right to protect their land was greater than the executive’s right to enter it.
Decision/Outcome
It was held that the defendants were trespassing on the claimant’s land. An individual has the right to prevent access to his land to anybody unless the access is granted by the law. It is only if the law permits an agent of the state to do something on the land of an individual that they will be able to do so. If the law is silent, any entry onto the land is a trespass. The state is therefore subject to the same position on trespass as would be the case for an individual. Any entry onto land without licence of the land owner is forbidden.
Updated 13 March 2026
This summary of Entick v Carrington [1765] EWHC KB J98 remains legally accurate. The case is a foundational authority in English constitutional and public law for the principle that the executive has no power to act against an individual’s property rights unless expressly authorised by law. This principle continues to be applied and cited by the courts. It was notably affirmed by the Supreme Court in R (Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council) v Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [2015] UKSC 6 and referenced in wider constitutional scholarship and case law. The Human Rights Act 1998, and in particular Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for private life and home) and Article 1 of Protocol 1 (protection of property), now operate alongside this common law principle, providing additional protection against unlawful state interference. Students should be aware that modern statutory powers of entry and search — such as those under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 — exist precisely because, following Entick v Carrington, the state must have clear legal authority to justify such actions. The article does not address this statutory landscape, but that omission does not affect the accuracy of what it does say. Overall, the core legal principles described in the article remain good law.
