The claimant was a guardsman travelling in the rear of a service lorry. He fell from the tailgate suffering severe injury. He was drunk after a social trip.
Held: Though a person could normally expect to be responsible himself for incidents occurring whilst drunk, the rule is not absolute. The defendant had assumed some responsibility to the claimant, and that responsibility did not disappear only because of the claimant’s drunkenness. This was an organised night out from an army training camp. Ignoring any particular duties, the defendant would know that the troops were being carried in a lorry with a tailgate, and that the drunken soldiers might be expected to stand up in the back. It was foreseeable that injury (whether slight or serious) would occur as a result of the drunken and rowdy behaviour of the passengers, including the danger that someone would fall from the vehicle as a result, such wider risk being apt to include within its description the accident which actually happened. Though the defendant was liable, the claimant was still largely the author of his own misfortune and was 75% responsible for his own injuries.
Judges:
Kennedy, Potter LJJ, Steel J
Citations:
Times 28-Jun-2000, Gazette 13-Jul-2000, [2000] EWCA Civ 198, [2000] 1 WLR 2055
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Haynes v Harwood CA 1935
The plaintiff, a policemen saw a horse running loose in the street among children. He ran out, chased it and caught it but was injured.
Held: The horseowner was liable. It was foreseeable that if a horse was let loose in a crowd, somebody, . .
Cited – Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock and Engineering Co Ltd (The Wagon Mound No 1) PC 18-Jan-1961
Foreseeability Standard to Establish Negligence
Complaint was made that oil had been discharged into Sydney Harbour causing damage. The court differentiated damage by fire from other types of physical damage to property for the purposes of liability in tort, saying ‘We have come back to the plain . .
Cited – Jolley v Sutton London Borough Council HL 24-May-2000
An abandoned boat had been left on its land and not removed by the council. Children tried to repair it, jacked it up, and a child was injured when it fell. It was argued for the boy, who now appealed dismissal of his claim by the Court of Appeal, . .
Cited – Hughes v Lord Advocate HL 21-Feb-1963
The defendants had left a manhole uncovered and protected only by a tent and paraffin lamp. A child climbed down the hole. When he came out he kicked over one of the lamps. It fell into the hole and caused an explosion. The child was burned. The . .
Cited – Barrett v Ministry of Defence CA 3-Jan-1995
The deceased was an off-duty naval airman. The claim was based upon the alleged negligent failure of the defendant to enforce disciplinary regulations against drunkenness so as to protect the deceased against his own known proclivity for alcohol . .
Cited – Sacco v Chief Constable of South Wales Constabulary and others CA 15-May-1998
The claimant a seventeen-year-old youth who had been arrested during a drunken brawl, kicked his way out through the door of the police van in which he was being transported and jumped out while it was moving at about twenty-five mph striking his . .
Cited by:
Cited – Cook v Thorne and Another CA 23-Jan-2001
. .
Cited – Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council and Cheshire County Council CA 18-Jun-2001
The appellant sought leave to appeal against an order dismissing his claim for damages. He had been injured swimming in water on the defendant’s land. The defendant asserted that they had no duty of care to those who came onto the land and imperiled . .
Cited – Calvert v William Hill Credit Ltd ChD 12-Mar-2008
The claimant said that the defendant bookmakers had been negligent in allowing him to continue betting when they should have known that he was acting under an addiction. The defendant company had a policy for achieving responsible gambling, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Personal Injury, Negligence
Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.82503
