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12. These two last-mentioned cases of Baker v. Moore and Wilkes v. The Hungerford Market Company cannot, however, any longer be regarded as precedents to be followed, having been overruled by the House of Lords in Ricket v. The Metropolitan Railway Company (L.R. 2 Eng. and Ir. App. 175) on the ground that the damage suffered was too remote--Lord CHELMSFORD saying: "As far as I have been able to examine the cases, in all of them except two, in which an individual has been allowed to maintain an action for damage which he has specially sustained by the obstruction of a highway, the injury complained of has been personal to himself, either immediately or by immediate consequence. The two excepted cases are those of Baker v. Moore, mentioned by Mr. Justice GOULD in Iveson v. Moore, and Wilkes v. The Hungerford Market Company." After describing those cases, Lord CHELMSFORD continues: "The case of Baker v. Moore appears to me to be even more doubtful than that of Wilkes v. The Hungerford Market Company; and, as to this latter case, Chief Justice Erle, in delivering the judgment of the majority of the Judges in the present case (Ricket v. The Metropolitan Railway Company) observed (5 B. & S. 161): 'If the same question were raised in an action now, we think it probable that the action would fail, both from the effect of the cases which preceded Wilkes v. The Hungerford Market Company, and also from the reasoning in the judgment in Ogilvy v. The Caledonian Railway Company' (2 Macq. Se. App. 229). In this observation upon Wilkes' case I entirely agree. An endeavour was made by Lord DENMAN to reconcile that case with the judgment which he pronounced in the case of The King v. The London Dock Company (5 Ad. & E. 163), but, in my opinion, not very successfully. It is impossible to discover any distinction between the consequential damage which constituted the cause of action respectively in the two cases." Lord Cranworth also said of Wilkes v. The Hungerford Market Company: "I confess that I have great difficulty in agreeing with that decision--a difficulty which, as I collect from the language of Sir WILLIAM ERLE in delivering the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber in the case now before us, was felt by him and the Judges (Pollock, C.B., Channell and Pigott, BB.) who concurred with him." The facts in Ricket v. The Metropolitan Railway Company, in which Lords CHELMSFORD and CRANWORTH made the foregoing observations, were these: Ricket was the occupier of a public house situated by the side of a public footway. A company obtained powers under certain Acts of Parliament (with which the Lands Clauses Act and the Railway Clauses Act were declared to be incorporated) to make a railway. The Company, in carrying these powers into execution, obstructed streets leading to this footway so as to make access to the public house inconvenient. The obstructions were not permanent, and, after some time, the streets were restored to their original condition. It was found by the jury that there was no structural damage to the premises, but that Ricket had sustained damage in respect to the interruption to his business. The House of Lords (Lord Westbury dissenting), affirming the decision of a majority of the Judges in the Exchequer Chamber, held that, even if the Company had not statutory powers to construct the railway, the damage occasioned by the obstruction to the plaintiff's business was too remote to sustain a civil action, and, further, did not come within the purview of the 68th section of the Land Clauses Act, or the 6th or 16th sections of the Railway Clauses Act. The grounds upon which that case was decided, were very clearly stated in the Exchequer Chamber by Erle, C.J. (5 B. & 8. 160) thus: "Here there has been no obstruction to the exercise of the right of way by or on behalf of the plaintiff; neither he himself, nor any one standing in a legal relation to him such as servant, agent, tenant, or any other legal relation, which gives to the plaintiff a legal interest in their use of the way, has been obstructed. But some unknown travellers, having a free option to pass from north to south, either by Crawford Passage or any other pass, have chosen some other pass, because they did not like the steps at Coppice Row; the plaintiff has no cause of action by reason of any obstruction direct to himself. The travellers, who have chosen to turn out of their path to avoid the steps, have no cause of action against the defendants in respect of the obstruction; and it seems unreasonable that an obstruction, which created no cause of action either for the plaintiff or for the travellers separately, should, by indirect consequence, become a cause of action to the plaintiff, because the travellers exercised their choice as to their path, and as to their refreshment--a choice in which the plaintiff had no manner of legal right." Previously, after referring, apparently with approbation, to Iveson v. Moore (l Ld. Raymond 486; S.C. 12 Mod. 262), Maynell v. Saltmarsh (1 Keble 847), Hart v. Bassett (Sir T. Jones Rep. 156), Greasly v. Codling (2 Bing. 263), Chichester v. Lethbridge (Willes 71) and Rose v. Miles (4 M. & S. 101) to which we shall presently again advert, he had said: "In all these cases the plaintiff was exercising his right of way, and the defendant obstructed that exercise, and caused particular damage thereby directly and immediately, to the plaintiff."