Trespass — nuisance — negligence — denial of liability — affirmative defence — consent — actual or ostensible authority — excavation — liability only trial. The plaintiffs claimed that excavation of land carried out by the defendants went "beyond the cleaning and maintenance of the boundary drain", caused damage to their farmland; bringing actions in trespass, nuisance and negligence in this liability only trial. The maintenance work was done by the defendant by the use of a digger that was on the defendant's side of the boundary. No issue was directly raised with the defendant in respect of the way that the work was done. An argument was made that the defendant was not entitled to rely on anything said by the farm managers employed on the plaintiffs' farm, however the court found that both managers had been asked to convey the views of the owner and had both actual and ostensible authority to act as conduits of the plaintiffs' views. The plaintiff submitted that the defence case as pleaded was inadequate, and that the Court must decide the case in accordance with the pleadings. The plaintiff argued that as the defence had only pleaded that they had consent to do cleaning and drainage work, and had not pleaded to having consent to do "excavation" work, that there was no defence to their liability. The court found that the matters had been adequately stated in the statement of defence, that amendment proceedings were not necessary, and that "the absence of a specific pleading in conversion is not fatal to the plaintiffs' case. The court found that the action of trespass must fail as the defendant had permission to clean and maintain the common boundary drain, and that the defendant's actions in entering the land was justified. The action in nuisance was found to fail as the defendants had, at all times, acted in accordance with the arrangements reached with the plaintiffs. The third action, in nuisance, also failed as the work did not fall outside of the cleaning and maintenance work that the plaintiffs had agreed to. Accordingly, each of the actions brought against the defendants were found to have failed. Judgment Date: 21 September 2017.