The Case of Thorns (Hulle v. Orynge) is the first known case where a common law court applied the foundational principle of tort law, ruling that an individual who suffers damages from the actions of another (even if those actions were lawful) is entitled to compensation.
Richard Orynge owned an acre of land in the town of Topsham in Devon, England. His neighbor, Henry Hulle, owned an adjoining five acres that were separated from Orynge’s land by a hedge of thorn bushes. While Orynge was trimming some trees at the edge of his property, some branches fell onto Hulle’s land on the other side of the hedge. Orynge entered Hulle’s land to retrieve the dropped branches, trampling a portion of Hulle’s grass in the process. Hulle sued Orynge for damages resulting from the trampled grass.
A majority of the King’s Bench held that Hulle was entitled to compensation for the grass trampled by Orynge. The justices agreed that it was lawful for Orynge to have cut the trees on his own property and to have entered Hulle’s land to retrieve the branches that fell there, but a minority of the justices agreed with Lord Catesby’s opinion that “if you do a lawful thing and damage results to another person without your wishing it, this thing will not be punished at all.” The other justices in the majority focused not on the lawfulness of the action in question, but on the right of the injured party to be made whole. In the words of Lord Bryan, “if someone does a thing he is bound to do it in such a way that no harm or damage is incurred by other persons through his act.”
Law French (Original)