Court case(1889) 41 Ch D 88

The defendants, who carried on a business of making paper boxes, let the ground floor of their building to the plaintiff, keeping the cellar for themselves. Their business required warm, dry air, and they heated the cellar with a hot-air pipe. The heat passed through the floor and raised the temperature of the plaintiff's room above. The plaintiff stored there a special brown paper which lost value when dried by heat. The heat did not inconvenience the plaintiff's workmen and would not have damaged ordinary paper. The plaintiff sought an injunction.

The Court of Appeal held that there was no actionable nuisance. The heat was not such as to cause discomfort to persons in the room or to injure ordinary goods; the damage resulted solely from the exceptionally delicate nature of the plaintiff's trade. A man who carries on an exceptionally delicate trade cannot complain because it is injured by his neighbour doing something lawful on his property, if what he does would not prejudice an ordinary business. The defendants were not liable.