Steel v Houghton
| Steel v Houghton (1788) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | House of Lords |
| Decided | 1788 |
| Citation(s) | (1788) 1 H Bl 51; 126 ER 32. |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Lord Loughborough |
| Keywords | |
| gleaning property law | |
Steel v Houghton (1788) 1 H Bl 51; 126 ER 32[1] is a landmark British judgment by the House of Lords that is considered to mark the modern legal understanding of private property rights. Ostensibly the matter found that that no person has a right at common law to glean the harvest of a private field but has been taken to be more general precedent for all private land matters.
Background
In early modern England gleaning was an important source of income for labouring families, at a time when many parishes were affected by enclosure and the wholesale transformation of property rights.
Over the harvests of 1785-1787 conflict had been escalating between land owners and gleaners in the village of Timworth, Suffolk. In 1787 Mary Houghton gleaned on the farm of a wealthy land owner James Steel who sued for trespass.
Verdict
In the decision the court sided with landlords and found against the gleaners claims, rejecting Mosaic Law and traditional Saxon constitution as a basis for the common law.[2][3]
Although precedent was raised by the gleaners which, prima facie, would support gleaning,[4] this was only to be viewed in the narrowest of terms with conditions, as was legislation which had provision for gleaning. But the sections which were discussed dealt with penalties. The Court held gleaning to be a ‘privilege’ only, and not a right, that is the poor of a parish had no legal right to glean and such gleaning was trespass.[5]
Lord Loughborough gave the leading judgment of the majority and argued that:
- gleaning wasn’t a universal common law right as it was unknown in some places;
- that it was uncertain who could claim such a right
- that the law should not turn acts of charity into legal obligations
- that Mosaic Law and pronouncements of Hale, Blackstone, Lord Justice Gilbert, and others – were either irrelevant to common law precedent or at best dicta.
- that granting the right to glean would "raise the insolence of the poor"
- as well as being against their own interests since, by reducing the farmers profits, it would reduce the rate payers’ capacity to contribute to the poor rates.
Loughborough conclusion was that the gleaners defence were "inconsistent with the nature of property which imports absolute enjoyment".
Criticism
The decision has been criticized on legal grounds for ignoring statute and precedence for an outcome that denied Natural Justice and has been criticized by Marxist scholars as a decision that was thinly veiled class oppression, particularly citing Loughborough's choice of words.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ The full case name is "Steel against Houghton et Uxor" ("Steel against Houghton and wife").
- ↑ William Selwyn, An abridgement of the law of nisi prius, Volume 2 page 489
- ↑ Eugene McLaughlin, "The Problem of Crime" SAGE publishing, 2001 page 114
- ↑ Blackstone Vol.2. page55.
- ↑ King, Peter (1992). "Legal Change, Customary Right, and Social Conflict in Late Eighteenth-Century England: The Origins of the Great Gleaning Case of 1788". Law and History Review 10: 1–31. doi:10.2307/743812.
- ↑ Linebaugh, Peter (2011). "At war with Jonah's whale, and after". Marxist update. Retrieved 9 August 2014.