The owner of a steam trawler, which was lying at a quay loading coal, brought an action against a railway company to recover damage done by the escape from the control of the defenders’ servants of waggons conveying coal, which ran down an incline and fell from a height on to deck of the trawler, owing, as the pursuer alleged, to the fault of the defenders’ servants in driving the waggons up the slope at an excessive speed. The method of loading the trawler followed by the defenders was to push the train of waggons by an engine behind up an inclined track until they were over the top of the up gradient, when the waggons were braked in succession by the guard in charge of the train, and placed in position on the down slope. The engine was then uncoupled and reversed, and the waggons taken singly on the down gradient to the coal hoist on the quay, emptied into the vessel, and then run out of the hoist. The waggons descended by the force of gravity, controlled by the brakes, which were manipulated by the servants of the coal merchant. On the occasion in question a train of sixteen waggons had been pushed up the incline, and the first and second had been braked on the down gradient when, owing to the snapping of the link coupling the waggon at the end of the train with the guard’s van, which was next the engine, the whole sixteen waggons got out of control, ran down the slope at a high rate of speed, dashed against a waggon which was being unloaded, and drove it and two others on to the top of the trawler. The defenders pleaded that the damage was entirely due to the breaking of a defective link belonging to a third party, the defective condition of which could not have been discovered by any reasonable care or diligence on the part of the defenders.
Held, on the facts (diss, the Lord Chancellor and Lord Dunedin, and reversing the judgment of the First Division), (1) that the defenders had failed to get rid of the inference of want of care on their part, accompanying the happening of an accident of the nature described; (2) that the breaking of the link was in fact due to a strain being put upon it which ought not in ordinary circumstances to have been required; and (3) that the fact that no negligence was established in failing to detect the flaw in the link did not constitute any defence, and that accordingly the defenders were liable.
Judges:
Lord Chancellor, Viscount Haldane, Viscount Finlay, Lord Dunedin, and Lord Shaw
Citations:
[1923] UKHL 441, 60 SLR 441
Links:
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Negligence
Updated: 13 June 2022; Ref: scu.633253