- Title
- Case note: civil liability arising from the Bunsfield explosion
- Creator
- Foster, Neil
- Relation
- Environmental Law Review Vol. 12, Issue 1, p. 57-70
- Relation
- http://www.vathek.com/elr/contents.php?vi=12.1
- Publisher
- Vathek Publishing
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2010
- Description
- What Mr Justice Steel in this decision of the High Court (“Colour Quest”) described as possibly the ‘largest peacetime explosion in Europe’ occurred at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire on 11 December 2005 (perhaps metaphorically proving Henry Higgins wrong in his dictum that ‘hurricanes hardly ever happen’ in counties beginning with H). There was never any doubt that litigation of various sorts would follow. The criminal prosecution of the owners and occupiers of the depot under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (UK) has recently concluded, but the decision in Colour Quest concluded the first stage of civil proceedings, in which damages have been sought by many of those impacted by the blast. The decision of Steel J covers a large area of legal territory, as well as the convoluted facts surrounding a mix of contracts and working arrangements that created the relevant civil obligations, and makes a number of important findings about what actually led to the terrifying incident. This Note attempts to signal some of the significant legal aspects of the judgment, which will no doubt be influential for some time.
- Subject
- vicarious liability; private nuisance; public nuisance; Rylands v Fletcher; negligence; pure economic loss
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/932960
- Identifier
- uon:11507
- Identifier
- ISSN:1461-4529
- Language
- eng
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