Ex-UNC senator loses at Privy Council

Five Privy Council judges have restored a 2010 High Court order which dismissed claims for compensation of a former UNC senator and his daughter for illness the two claimed they suffered because of an uncapped Petrotrin oil well.

In 2006, former UNC senator Stanley Ryan and his daughter Athena were diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and reactive airway diseases. They lived at 13 Hickling Village, Fyzabad, 45 feet south-east of an oil well no longer used by Petrotrin. The two attributed their medical conditions to emissions of hydrocarbon gases from the well and adjoining land under Petrotrin’s control and sought damages from the company. Their claims were dismissed by then High Court judge Peter Rajkumar, now an appellate judge.

The two appealed and in 2015, the Court of Appeal overturned Rajkumar’s ruling. Petrotrin went to the Privy Council which last week overturned the Appeal Court’s ruling and ordered the Ryans to pay Petrotrin’s legal costs.

Privy Council judges Lady Hale, Lord Kerr, Lord Wilson, Lord Carnwath and Lord Hughes were asked to determine the appropriate test of causation and whether there was sufficient evidence to support the decision of the local Court of Appeal. In 1999, there was a report of a “slight odour of oil in the air” and an inspection by the company revealed an oil stain some 12 feet in diameter close to the well casing to the west. Although it was not clearly attributed to oil emanating from the well itself, Petrotrin took steps to deal with it by digging a small pit with a connecting drain and instructing contractors to visit every two weeks or so to remove any oil traces. In his 2010 ruling, Rajkumar accepted that Petrotrin had a duty to ensure that oil or other substances on land for which it was responsible did not emit gaseous emanations to such an extent as to pose a source of injury to adjoining landowners.

He also accepted that there was some seepage of hydrocarbons from the area of the well before 2006, but concluded that the amount was minimal and unquantified. According to Rajkumar’s findings, the medical evidence did not establish a link with the Ryans’ ill-health.

Lord Carnwath, who delivered the decision, held that the evidence relied on by the Ryans appeared to have played a limited part in the trial before the judge. Lord Carnwath also found that in analysing the medical evidence, no cause had been established by the Ryans for their medical conditions.