S. S.

Jain Subodh Law College, Jaipur

Affiliated to
Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Law University

Submitted by: Anirudh vyas Submitted to: Mr. Keshav Gaur

Subject : Law of Torts
Semester : I

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 CONTENTS
Declaration by student…………………………………………………….....3
Supervisors Certificate……………………………………………...…….…4
Acknowledgement………………………………………………………..…5
Abstract………………………………………………………………….…..6
Chapter 1……………………………………………………………….……7-8
Chapter 2……………………………………………………………….……9-14
Chapter 3………………………………………………………………….…15
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..16
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………17

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 DECLARATION BY THE STUDENT

I hereby declare that the work reported in this project entitled, “Strict Liability vs Absolute
Liability: Comparative Study ” ,submitted to the S. S. Jain Subodh Law College, Jaipur is an
authentic record of my work carried out under the supervision of Asst. Prof. . It is further
certified that there is no plagiarism in this work. I further attest that I am fully responsible for
its content.

(Signature of the Scholar)

Name: Anirudh vyas
Place: Jaipur, Rajasthan
Date:

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 SUPERVISOR’ S CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the work reported in the project entitled, “Strict Liability vs Absolute
Liability: Comparative Study ” ,submitted by , to the S. S. Jain Subodh Law College, Jaipur
is a bona fide record of her/his original work carried out under my supervision. It is further
certified there is no plagiarism in it. This work is being recommended for further evaluation
by the external examiner.

Place: Jaipur, Rajasthan (Signature of the Supervisor)

Date:

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the esteemed academicians, researchers, and
scholars whose works have been instrumental in shaping my understanding of strict liability
and absolute liability. Their insightful contributions have facilitated a comprehensive
comparative analysis of these two concepts.

I would also like to thank [Keshav Gaur Sir] for their invaluable guidance, support, and
encouragement throughout the research process. Their expertise and feedback have been
invaluable in refining my arguments and improving the overall quality of the analysis.

Lastly, I am grateful to [S.S. Jain Subodh Law College] for providing me with the necessary
resources and infrastructure to undertake this research.

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 ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study “A comparative study on absolute liability and strict liability” is
to know To study about the essentials of strict liability, To analyze the necessity of absolute
liability in India, To know the exception under strict liability, To examine the difference
between absolute and strict liability. The concept of liability in torts depends on the key rule
that it is wrongful to make hurt different people, regardless of whether particular insurances
are missing. In law, a person is said to be lawfully at risk when she/he is legitimately in
charge of something – a result that has happened because of the individual's activity or
omission. This reason impact relationship is vital for building up obligation, for without a
reason or source for the wrong, duty all in all can't be joined – the component of 'fault' is
required to ascribe harm and claim remedy. The rule for this situation lays on the possibility
of foreseeability- of harm; the individual who is the wellspring of harm is punished for
neglecting to deflect the sensibly predictable harm. Strict liability and absolute liability are
probably the most key ideas in the law of torts, and appreciation of their disparities is basic
for any law understudy. In this article, the circle of tortious liability in so far as it identifies
with strict and absolute liability will be broke down, through the point of interest instances of
Rylands v. Fletcher and M.C. Mehta v. Union of India. At last the researcher concludes that
there should be proper legal provisions and and there should be rigorous liability on polluting
the environment in strict and absolute liability.

KEYWORDS: Absolute liability, Dangerous,Exceptions, Hazardous , Negligence and Strict

liability.

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION : Strict liability and Absolute liability

Strict liability : Strict liability is a doctrine that holds a person liable for any injuries or
damages caused by their products or actions, even if they had no intent to harm and were not
at fault. An injured party does not have to prove negligence or fault in order to receive
damages under strict liability.
Even if a defendant uses safety precautions and posts warnings, if the action falls under the
theory of strict liability law, they will be held liable. The idea behind strict liability is that the
defendant's actions are of such dangerous propensity that it is reasonably foreseeable
someone could be injured.
It is meant to encourage people who engage in these types of behaviors or actions to use
safety measures. The injured party does not have to prove fault on the part of the defendant,
but they do have to show that the hazardous conditions caused their injuries. In tort law, the
doctrine of strict liability does not look at a defendant's intent, negligence, or lack of
reasonable care, it simply looks at the dangerous activities and whether those actions caused
the plaintiff's injuries.
An example of a strict liability claim may be when a consumer buys a product that turns out
to be defective or dangerous and is then injured by using it. Another example may be injuries
caused by someone's dangerous animal. This lesson will delve deeper into the different
categories of strict liability.

Absolute Liability : In the very beginning, some question arises in our mind like, what is
Absolute Liability? How is different from strict liability? There is a very direct and a straight
answer to it. Absolute liability is nothing but applying Strict Liability but without any
exceptions.
Now another question arises why there is any need for this new doctrine or principle when
there are many principles on liability. We can find out the answer from answering another
question.

If an enterprise is doing some hazardous work or is a dangerous industry due to some

accidents occurring there, people die or are getting injured. What will be the measure of the

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 CHAPTER 1

liability for such an enterprise? In such a situation, should we apply the rule of Rylands V
Fletcher?

Is there any other principle or method to find out the liability? Or by applying the Principle of
Strict liability in Ryland V Fletcher will help us to reach a suitable conclusion in the matters
of mass injury taking place because of such industry?

In the 19th century, even when there was no development in the fields of science and
technology, the rules in Rylands v. Fletcher came into being. Hence, it cannot afford any
guidance in evolving any standard of liability consistent with the needs of the present
economic structure.

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 CHAPTER 2

A brief Difference between Strict liability and Absolute liability :

Strict Liability :

The theory of strict liability can be characterised as acts or omissions that are judged
accountable without the presence of mens rea (mental intent). It is a liability standard that
may be applied in either a criminal or civil situation. Strict liability is a regulation that
renders a person legally liable for the damage and loss caused by his or her actions and
omissions, regardless of culpability, including criminal law blame.

The imposition of duty on a party without a finding of fault is known as strict liability in tort
law (such as negligence or tortious intent). The claimant merely needs to show that the tort
happened and that the defendant was to blame. A person is guilty and convicted in criminal
law based on both actus reus (the banned conduct) and mens rea (reasonableness) (the
intention to commit the prohibited act).

The criminal offence is built on the foundation of mens rea and actus reus. In circumstances
of strict liability, however, the mens rea (intention) is immaterial in both cases. Even if the
individual has no intention, he is guilty based on the act alone (actus reus). In this case, the
criterion to show the offence does not include intent. There is also no requirement to establish
negligence.

Because defendants will be convicted even if they were really unaware of one or more facts
that made their conduct or omissions illegal, the responsibility is considered to be stringent.
As a result, the defendants may not be responsible in any manner, i.e. there may not even be
criminal negligence, the lowest degree of mens rea. These laws are used in regulatory
offences imposing social conduct where a person's punishment is modest, or if society is
concerned with the avoidance of damage and desires to maximise the offence's deterrent
value.
The strict liability theory was established in England in the 19th century in Rylands vs.
Fletcher.The defendant was the owner of a mill, and he built a reservoir to supply water to

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 CHAPTER 2

the mill. This reservoir was built on top of historic coal mines, and the mill owner had no
reason to believe that these previous excavations led to a working colliery. The water in the
reservoir inundated the colliery by flowing down the ancient shafts.

Blackburn J. held the mill owner to be liable, on the principle that:

The person who for his own purposes brings on his land and collects and keeps there
anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do
so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequences of its
escape.
The House of Lords upheld the idea of liability without fault on appeal, but limited it to
non-natural uses. This theory covers companies that deal with water, power, oil, hazardous
gases, colliery waste, and dangerous vegetation.

Essentials Of Strict Liability:

For the application of the rule of strict liability, there are three main essential ingredients that
should to present.
Some dangerous thing must be brought by a person on his land
The dangerous thing brought by the person must escape the premise.
There must be a non- natural use of the land.
Some Dangerous Thing Must Be Brought By A Person On His Land
It implies that if a person utilises dangerous objects and causes harm to another person, that
person is obliged to compensate the other person for the harm he has caused. Dangerous
things, according to this theory, include vast amounts of water, gas, electricity, explosives,
and so on. The presence of a big amount of water was likewise declared a harmful item in the
Rylands Vs. Fletcher[2] case, and the defendant was ordered to compensate the plaintiff.

The Dangerous Thing Brought By The Person Must Escape The Premise
Another important component of Strict Liability is escape, which specifies that anything that
causes injury to another person must be escaped from the person's property and should not be
within reach of the person. For instance, suppose A has developed some poisonous plants that
might cause great injury to anyone or any animal that consumes them. If B's Sheep ate that

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 CHAPTER 2

plant because some of them had fallen on B's land, then A is obligated to recompense B for
his loss; but, if B's Sheep entered A's property and ate that plant, then A is not liable for the
loss.
Read Vs. Lyons & Co. decided that where there is no escape from the defendant's property,
the defendant is not responsible to pay the plaintiff for the damage he has suffered.

There Must Be A Non-Natural Use Of Land

It means that if stored water is used for a natural purpose, such as domestic purposes, a
person cannot be held liable for any harm caused by it; however, if it is used for a non-natural
purpose, such as in the case of Rylands Vs. Fletcher[4], the defendant used the land to build a
reservoir to benefit its mill, putting others in danger, and thus he was liable for the plaintiff's
loss.

Exceptions To The Rule

There are certain exceptions to this rule of liability where the defendant will be freed from all
forms of liability.
Those exceptions are as follows:
Plaintiff Is The Wrongdoer
If the claimant's act or default is the only source of the injury, he has no recourse. Assume a
person visits someone's property knowing there is a vicious dog on the premises that can bite
him. Also, if he enters and gets bitten by a dog, he will be unable to seek compensation. This
was mentioned as a defence in Rylands v Fletcher. If a person is aware that his mine may be
flooded as a result of his neighbor's operations on adjacent ground, and he accepts the risk by
acting in a way that makes flooding more likely, he cannot complain.

Similarly, in Ponting v Noakes 5, the claimant's horse crossed the defendant's boundary,
nibbled a poisonous tree there, and died as a result, and it was held that the claimant could
recover nothing because the damage was caused by the horse's own intrusion and
alternatively because no vegetation had escaped. As we can see, the object does not escape

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 CHAPTER 2

from the defendant's property, and the plaintiff was at fault for not taking sufficient care of his
horse dues, which he is liable for.

Statutory Authority
By legislation, the rule in Rylands v Fletcher might be overturned. Whether this is true or not
is a matter of interpreting the legislation in question. For example, in Green v Chelsea
Waterworks Co6, a main belonging to a water-works company, which was authorised by
Parliament to lay the main, broke without any negligence on the company's part, flooding the
claimant's properties; the business was found not responsible. In Cross Electricity Co v
Hydraulic Power Co7, on the other hand, when the facts were identical, the defendants were
found to be responsible and had no defence against the interpretation of their legislation. The
difference between the two examples is that the Hydraulic Power was authorised by
legislation to supply water for industrial reasons, which meant they had permissive authority
but not mandatory authority, and they were not required to maintain their mains charged with
water at high pressure or at all. The Chelsea Waterworks Co. was permitted by laws to lay
mains and was required by law to provide a continuous supply of water; as a result, damage
was an unavoidable consequence.Corporate law consulting

Act Of Third Party

According to this, if injury is produced by a stranger or third party, and there is no negligence
on the part of either the plaintiff or defendant, but the loss occurs as a result of the stranger's
act, the defendant is not accountable. The term "stranger" or "third person" does not include
the defendant's servants, agents, or other employees.

Consent Of The Plaintiff

This exception states that if a person is aware of the potential for damage during a particular
act and yet performs that conduct, he is responsible for his own actions. He can't hold anyone
else responsible for that behaviour unless that person was irresponsible in some way and he
was unaware of it. Volenti Non Fit Injuria is another name for this.

Vis Major Or Act Of God

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 CHAPTER 2

It is another exemption that declares that if the loss is caused by an act of God, such as a
flood, earthquake, or other natural calamity, no one will be held responsible because these
events are beyond human control. The Act of God defence applies when the escape is
induced directly by natural forces without human interference under "circumstances that no
human foresight can give and of which human wisdom is not obligated to perceive the
likelihood." The most crucial aspect of this defence is that the object escaped without the
defendant's knowledge, and that the breakout was so unusual that no one could have
predicted it.

Absolute Liability :
Concept Of Absolute Liability
With the passage of time, the renowned rule of strict liability established by Blackburn J. in
Rylands v. Fletcher 8 has shown to be unsuccessful in combating the unsafe use of one's
property or an enterprise that produces chemicals or wastes harmful to public health. The
pre-requisites for establishing a responsibility under the strict liability principle, such as the
non-natural use of land, the use of a dangerous substance, and the element of escape,
presented 9 significant loopholes for businesses to avoid liability under the Rylands v.
Fletcher 9 rule.
Furthermore, the exclusions allowed under the regulation (and reiterated by the Supreme
Court of India in MC Mehta v. Union of India) provide commercial businesses sufficient
chance to avoid accountability.
In MC Mehta v. Union of India, the Supreme Court of India established a more rigorous strict
liability test than the Rylands v. Fletcher norm. In this case, the leaking of Oleum gas from
one of Shriram Industries' operations in Delhi caused significant damage. The court held that,
in light of the needs and demands of a modern society with advanced scientific knowledge
and technology, where it was necessary to carry out inherently dangerous or hazardous
industry for the sake of a development programme, a new rule needed to be established to
adequately address the problems that arise in a highly industrialised economy.

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 CHAPTER 2

This new rule had to be based on the English law of strict liability , but it had to be even
stricter, such that no company engaged in an intrinsically risky or hazardous activity could
escape culpability, regardless of whether or not carelessness was involved.

The court also pointed out that the duty owed by such an enterprise to the society is absolute
and non-delegable and that the enterprise cannot escape liability by showing that it had taken
all reasonable care and there was no negligence on its part.

Rylands v. Fletcher established a rule requiring the defendant's non-natural use of land and
the escape from his land of the object that causes harm. However, the decision in MC Mehta
v. Union of India is not contingent on any of these factors. The new rule must be used
whenever the defendant is engaged in a hazardous or intrinsically dangerous activity and
injury is caused to anybody as a consequence of an accident while doing such a hazardous or
inherently dangerous activity.

The rule in Rylands v. Fletcher will not apply to situations of injury to people on the premises
since the rule requires the object that produces the harm to leave the premises. The new
regulation makes no distinction between those within and outside the premises where the
enterprise is carried on, because escape of the object causing injury from the premises is not a
requirement for the law's applicability.

Furthermore, the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher, while strict in the sense that it is not contingent
on the defendant's negligence and thus similar to the new rule, is not absolute because it is
subject to many exceptions, whereas the new rule in Mehta's case is not only strict but
absolute and has no exceptions.

Another significant difference between the two is in the amount of damages awarded.
Ordinary or compensatory damages will be awarded if the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher applies;
however, exemplary damages may be awarded where the rule in MC Mehta's case applies,
and the larger and more profitable the company, the greater the amount of compensation due
by it.

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 CHAPTER 3
Comparative analysis between Strict liability and Absolute liability :

Absolute liability:
•Hazardous or inherently dangerous activities
•Escape not necessary – liability within and outside premise
•No exceptions to the rule
•Applies to Non-Natural and Natural uses of land
Strict liability:
•Any other activities
•Escape necessary
•Provides for exceptions
•Applies only to Non-Natural use of land

The difference between Strict and Absolute liability was clearly mentioned by the Supreme
Court in M.C.Mehta v. Union of India, where the court summarised it broadly as follows: In
Absolute Liability just those endeavors might be held at risk which are associated with risky
or inalienably hazardous exercises. The escape of the dangerous thing from one's own
property isn't fundamental. Absolute liability is material to those harmed inside the start and
outside the preface. The rule of Absolute liability does not have any special exceptions , not
at all like the rule of Strict Liability. The control clarified upon in Ryland v. Fletcher applies
just to the non normal utilization of land, however outright risk applies even to the common
utilization of land. In the event that a man utilizes a dangerous substance and if such
substance get away, he might be held obligated despite the fact that he have taken legitimate
care. The degree of dangerous relies upon the size and money related capacity of the
establishment. The Supreme Court additionally expressed that the undertaking must be held
to be under a "commitment to guarantee that the hazardous or innately dangerous exercises in
which it is locked in must be directed with the most standard of safety and security and if any
damage comes about because of such careless movement, the endeavor/organization must be
held absolutely liable to adjust. for any harm caused and no open door is to given to reply to
the venture to state that it had taken all sensible International Journal of Pure and Applied
Mathematics Special Issue care and that the damage caused with no carelessness on his part".

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 CONCLUSION
The rule of strict liability and absolute liability can be viewed as exception . A man is made
subject just when he is to be at fault. In any case, the guideline overseeing these two
principles is that a man can be made at risk even without his fault. This is known as the
principles of "no fault liability." Under these principles, the liable individual might not have
done the act , but rather despite everything he'll be in charge of the harm caused because of
the act. On account of strict liability , there are a few exemptions where the respondent
wouldn't be made at risk. Be that as it may, on account of absolute Liability , no exceptions
are given to the respondent. The litigant will be influenced at risk under the strict liability to
administer regardless. Tort is a common wrong for which the cure is a precedent-based law
activity for unliquidated harms and which isn't solely the rupture of an agreement or the break
of a trust or other just fair commitment. (Vinod Shankar mishra, 1994) There are numerous
standards representing the law of torts. For the most part, a man is subject for his own
wrongful acts and one doesn't cause any liability for the act done by others. In the event that
an individual commits a fault , he is at risk for it. In any case, there is a rule which asserts an
individual liable without his being to fault. This is the 'no fault liability principle '. For this
situation, the at risk individual might not have done any act of carelessness or may have put
in some positive endeavors however the rule claims International Journal of Pure and Applied
Mathematics Special Issue him for the pay. This guideline has its foundations in the two
historic point cases-Rylands v Fletcher (strict liability) and M.C.Mehta v Union of
India(absolute Liability). The principles of strict liability obviously expresses that a man who
keeps hazardous substances in his premises is in charge of the fault if that substance escapes
in any way and causes harms. This principle stands genuine if there was no carelessness in
favor of the individual keeping it and the weight of evidence dependably lies on the litigant to
act how he isn't at risk. Though the rule of absolute Liability held that where an undertaking
is occupied with a hazardous or dangerous movement and it hurt outcomes to anybody by
virtue of a mischance in the task of such risky or characteristically hazardous action coming
about, the venture is strictly and absolutely liable to repay to every one of the individuals who
are affected by the accident. Both these rules take after the 'no fault liability principle ', a rule
in which the respondent is held subject regardless of whether he isn't specifically or by
implication in charge of the harms caused to the offended party

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

● https://legaldesire.com/concept-of-strict-and-absolute-liability/
● https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-7666-strict-liability-and-absolute-liabi
lity.html
● https://lawcirca.com/rule-of-strict-and-absolute-liability/
● https://blog.ipleaders.in/concept-strict-liability-absolute-liability/
● https://www.ijlmh.com/paper/the-rule-of-strict-liability-and-absolute-liability-in-india
n-perspective/

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