Member-only story
The cost of entitlement
On economics, law and personal conviction
In 1865, a Dr Sturges purchased a property at no. 85, Wimpole Street in London’s Westminster borough. He must have been doing good business, since in 1873 he decided to build a dedicated consulting room at the end of his garden. One side wall of this new building was the back wall of the kitchen of a property in Wigmore Street, occupied by Mr Bridgman. Mr Bridgman was a confectioner who had been using his kitchen for his trade for more than 20 years.
His business involved using two large marble mortars set in brickwork against the party wall, in which loaf sugar and other ingredients were broken up with two equally large wooden pestles held in position by bearers fixed to the party wall. Mr Bridgman engaged in this activity typically every day between 10am and 1pm. In fact, he (and before him, his father) had been using one of the mortars for sixty years, and the second one for 26 years. But now, the noise and vibrations were noticeable in Dr Sturges’ new consulting room, preventing him from examining patients with pulmonary conditions through auscultation, and making it impossible for him to engage in any activity which required thought and attention. So Dr Sturges sought an injunction to stop Mr Bridgman using his noisy equipment.
