## Facts

- Burmah Oil Company Ltd. and related companies owned oil wells, pipelines, refineries, buildings, and petroleum stocks in Burma.
- In early 1942, during the Japanese invasion, British military commanders acted under UK government directives to destroy oil installations and stocks if necessary to prevent enemy capture and to aid the war effort.
- British forces carried out deliberate, planned, large-scale demolition over several weeks; it was not incidental damage from combat.
- The companies sought compensation from the Crown for losses caused by the destruction.
- In Scotland’s Court of Session, the Outer House allowed the claims to proceed, but the Inner House (First Division) dismissed them as disclosing no legal right to compensation.
- The companies appealed to the House of Lords.

## Issues

1. Whether the deliberate wartime destruction of the companies’ property was within the Crown’s prerogative powers relating to the conduct of war and therefore lawful.
2. If lawful, whether the owners had a legal right to compensation from public funds absent express statutory authority.

## Decision

- The House of Lords allowed the appeals by a 3–2 majority.
- The majority held the destruction was lawful as an exercise of the Crown’s war prerogative.
- The majority also held the Crown was liable to compensate because the deliberate destruction for the public benefit was equivalent to requisitioning the property.
- Two Law Lords dissented, concluding that no compensable right arose from lawful exercise of the war prerogative.

## Legal Principles

- Lawful exercise of the war prerogative does not, by itself, resolve whether compensation is owed for resulting loss.
- A distinction exists between (a) incidental or unavoidable damage occurring in combat operations (generally not compensable) and (b) deliberate, systematic destruction of friendly subjects’ property undertaken in the public interest (treated as analogous to requisition and compensable).
- Where private property is intentionally sacrificed for a public purpose, the burden should not fall solely on the owner; compensation is generally required from public funds absent a clear legal rule to the contrary.
- In the absence of a statutory compensation scheme, liability may arise from common law principles governing the Crown–subject relationship and protection of property.
- The dissent viewed compensation as a matter for legislative choice and denied that the common law implied a compensation obligation for lawful wartime destruction under prerogative.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords held that deliberate wartime destruction of private property to serve the public war effort could be lawful under the Crown’s war prerogative yet still require compensation because it was functionally equivalent to requisitioning, though a minority would have left any compensation rule to Parliament.


Burmah Oil Co. v. Lord Advocate, [1965] A.C. 75 (H.L. 1964)