1. The word derives from 'nocumentum' (harm). There are two main classes of nuisances: public nuisance and private nuisance.
a) A person is liable if he creates the nuisance or, being in a position to abate it, permits it to continue once he knows about it: Leakey v. National Trust 1980 - the defendants permitted a hillside to collapse through weathering upon the plaintiff's land.
b) If the defendant had no reasonable way of knowing about a danger, he will not be liable:
Caminer v. Northern and London Investment Trust Ltd. 1951 - tree collapsing on a highway and damaging a car.

2. Public nuisance
a) This is as well a crime indictable at common law; it may also be restained by injunction at the suit of the Attorney- General.
b) Examples: keeping a common gaming-house; obstructing highways and rendering them dangerous.
c) If a person suffers special damage as the result of a public nuisance, over and above the harm caused to the public at large, he may bring an action in tort against the person who creates the nuisance:
Benjamin v. Storr 1874 - horses and van obstructing the business of a coffee-house owner all day long.
Not so in Harper v. G. Haden 1933 - house next door renovated; claim in public, no special inconvenience; but this was neither a private nuisance at all (below).
Neither in R. v. Lloyd 1882- three attorneys disturbed by public noise.

3. Private nuisance
This is solely a tort. In essence, it is a wrong which incommodes a person in the use and enjoyment of his land, and it also embraces certain injuries and inconveniences caused to users of the highway.
a) There are two classes:
aa) Nuisances which damage the plaintiff's enjoyment of an easement, such as right of way, or his enjoyment of a natural right, such as his right to have his land supported by the land of his neighbour. These are actionable per se.
bb) Nuisances which arise when obnoxious things, such as smoke, water, smell, vibrations, animals or the branches or roots of a treeare allowed to escape or obtrude upon the plaintiff's land. These are actionable on the case.
b) Private nuisance is essentially a remedy for an occupier of land, no one else is entitled to it: Malone v. Laskey 1907 - Vibrations causing a cistern to fall upon and injure an occupier's wife; she had no proprietary interest. But today, she would have a claim under the rule in Khorasandjian v. Bush 1993.

4. The law of nuisance is governed by the rule of 'give and take'.
Harper v. G. Haden 1933 - house next door renovated; claim in public nuisance but this was also a matter of give and take.
a) The presence of 'malice' may sometimes be a determining factor.
aa) But when the law gives a person a legal right to do something no amount of ill-will in the doing of it will make that right into a wrong: Bradford Corpn v. Pickles 1895 - flow of water perculating in undefined channels beneath the surface was stopped by the defendant in order cut off the water supply of his neighbor. But as he had a right to do it (land drainage considerations in a previous House of Lords decision), his malice didn't wrong it.
bb) Where the law merely concedes to people the privilege of doing things without conferring upon them a positive right (i.e. shooting on their own land), these thing may be done, but only when they are done lawfully. The element of malice may render such an activity unlawful: Hollywood Silver Fox Farm Ltd. v. Emmett 1936 - a man instucting his son to shoot on his own land but as nearly as possible to his neighbour's in order that the latter's vixen might miscarry.
b) Where a person is abnormally sensitive, or owns property peculiarly liable to damage, he must put up with inconveniences that cause harm to him by reason only of this exceptional sensitivity: Robinson v. Kilvert 1889 - heat coming from the flat below the plaintiff's one damaging his paper.
c) The duration of repetition of an obnoxious activity may sometimes render it a nuisance; contrasting cases:
Castle v. St. Augustine's Links Ltd. 1922 - golf balls, regularly hit onto a road, one of them injured a man.
Stone v. Bolton 1950 - cricket balls, seldom hit onto a road, one of them hit a man.