Physical Inconvenience

In Farley v Skinner (20LL p102) the House of Lords awarded non-pecuniary damages for the physical inconvenience and discomfort arising from aircraft noise. In the Solicitors Journal of 2 November Richard Lawson concluded an article on damages for disappointment and inconvenience in the light of Farley v Skinner with an account of an earlier authority for saying that damages can be recovered for physical inconvenience. The claimant had been serving on board a ship which wrongfully took part in hostilities between Spain and Peru. He disembarked at Rio, was imprisoned as a Peruvian deserter, then released, only to find his ship had gone, taking with it the bulk of his possessions. The court refused to allow him to recover for his lost goods or his period of imprisonment, but did allow him ‘something under the head of general damages for some of the inconveniences and annoyances which he had suffered’ ( Burton v Pinkerton [1867] 2 Ex 340).