P C E PAUL Vs. WILLIAM ROBSON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The action in which the present appeal is brought is an action in which the appellants sued the respondents for infringement of certain rights of light possessed by them in connection with premises known as 7, Esplanade, East, Calcutta, of which they owned the freehold. The respondents had erected a building known as 8, Esplanade, East, Calcutta, lying to the east of the appellants premises, and so situated that the western walls of the respondents buildings were parallel to and at a distance of 17 feet from the eastern wall of the appellants building. The ground on which the respondents building was erected had for more than twenty years previously been occupied by much lower buildings, and it is conceded that the appellants had acquired rights of light thereby for the windows on the east side of their premises. The new buildings of the respondents greatly exceed in height the former buildings upon the site and decreased the amount of light coming to the eastern windows of the appellants, and it is in respect of this interference with the access of light to their windows that the appellants brought the action.

(2.) The action came on for trial with witnesses before the Hon. Mr. Justice Stephen, sitting as a Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, in its ordinary civil jurisdiction, and on the 29th day of March 1911 he gave judgment dismissing the action. An appeal was brought from that judgment to the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal in its appellate jurisdiction, and on the 1st of day of August 1911 judgment was delivered by that Court dismissing the appeal. It is from this judgment that the present appeal is brought.

(3.) Both in the Court of First Instance and in the Court of appeal the facts of the case are dealt with in detail, and clear findings are given on all relevant points of fact. Their Lordships can find no material difference between the views taken by the two Courts on these points of fact, though the expressions used may not be in all cases identical. Their Lordships therefore would feel justified in holding, if it were necessary, that this is a case of concurrent findings of fact. But in truth the grounds of appeal do not relate to these findings of fact, but to the question whether the Courts below have taken the proper view of the legal rights of the appellants, and whether, accordingly, the test which they applied as to whether those rights had been infringed was the correct-one. This is a pure question of law, and it was admitted by counsel for the appellants that it practically turns upon the interpretation to be given to the well-known decision of the House of Lords in the case of Colls v. Home and Colonial Stores, Limited [1904] A.C. 179 when considered in connection with the later decision of the House of Lords in Jolly v. Kine (1907) A.C. 11.