Court case(1856) 11 Ex 781

The defendant company had laid a water main in a Birmingham street with a fire-plug fitted according to the best known system. The plug had worked properly for about twenty-five years. In the severe frost of January 1855, one of the most intense ever known in the area, the frost caused the apparatus of the plug to fail; water escaped from the main, forced its way through the ground and flooded the plaintiff's house. The plaintiff sued the company for negligence, and the jury found for him at the trial.

The Court of Exchequer set the verdict aside and entered judgment for the company. Alderson B. defined negligence as "the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do". The company had laid the main and plug with proper care, and they had worked for years. A reasonable man would not have provided against a frost of such extraordinary severity, which was beyond the experience of those who had laid the pipes. The accident was caused by an event that could not reasonably be foreseen, so there was no negligence. The company was not an insurer against every escape of water.