stylistic:tone, linguistic:voice_change
Issues with private nuisance

The idea of private nuisance has been criticised by academics for at least 50 years. Criticism centres on the free rein given to the judiciary and the lack of concrete definitions for legal principles; the idea of "reasonableness", for examples, is frequently bandied about, but "rarely examined in detail, and it would be a brave person who would attempt to draw out a definition". While a definition for private nuisance is easy to find, the regularly accepted one does not consider that most private nuisance cases involve two occupiers of land; the "nuisance" has moved from the defendant's land to the claimant's land. Some judicial rationes decidendi, such as that of Lord Wright in Sedleigh-Denfield v O'Callaghan, seem to indicate that private nuisance is only valid in situations where there are two occupiers of land. Despite this, definitions of private nuisance fail to include any reference. Academics also assert that the tort of private nuisance has "lost its separate identity as a strict liability tort and been assimilated in all but name into the fault-based tort of negligence". Conor Gearty supports the assertion that private nuisance is confused, and also claims that private nuisance is significantly different from public nuisance; "they have little in common except the accident of sharing the same name... Private nuisance has, if anything, become even more confused and confusing. Its chapter lies neglected in the standard works, little changed over the years, its modest message overwhelmed by the excitements to be found elsewhere in tort. Any sense of direction which may have existed in the old days is long gone".