Category: Negligence

Sebry v Companies House and Another: QBD 26 Jan 2015

The claimant sought damages in negligence and breach of statutory duty, saying that a failure by the defendants to maintain the correctness of its registers led to losses causing the insolvency of his company. The defendant had filed a note of a winding up order against the wrong (but similarly named) company.
Held: ‘the Registrar owes a duty of care when entering a winding up order on the Register to take reasonable care to ensure that the Order is not registered against the wrong company. That duty is owed to any Company which is not in liquidation but which is wrongly recorded on the Register as having been wound up by order of the court. The duty extends to taking reasonable care to enter the Order on the record of the Company named in the Order, and not any other company. It does not extend to checking information supplied by third parties. It extends only to entering that information accurately on the Register.’

Edis J
[2015] EWHC 115 (QB), [2016] 1 WLR 2499, [2015] 4 All ER 681, [2015] BCC 236, [2015] 1 BCLC 670
Bailii
Companies Act 2006 108
England and Wales

Administrative, Negligence

Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.541767

Baxter v Barnes (T/A We Barnes Tree Surgeons And/Or Upand Out Platform Hire: QBD 12 Jan 2015

Claim for damages for personal injuries and consequential loss arising out of an accident suffered by the Claimant on 1 December 2010. On that day, the Claimant was engaged in his business, together with some of his employees, in the pruning of a tree. He and one of his employees, Mr Milbourn, were working from the basket of a sophisticated piece of equipment called a Mobile Elevated Work Platform (MEWP) which had been hired by the Claimant from the Defendant.

Collender QC HHJ
[2015] EWHC 54 (QB)
Bailii

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.541570

Old Gate Estates Ltd v Toplis and Harding and Russell: 1939

The case of Donoghue -v- Stevenson was restricted in its application to cases of negligence causing damage to life, limb or health.

Wrottesley J
[1939] 3 All ER 209, [1939] 161 LT 227
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Donoghue (or M’Alister) v Stevenson HL 26-May-1932
Decomposed Snail in Ginger Beer Bottle – Liability
The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a . .

Cited by:
Too narrow – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.216363

Caldwell v Maguire and Fitzgerald: CA 27 Jun 2001

The claimant, a professional jockey, had been injured when he was unseated as a result of manoeuvres by two fellow jockeys. At trial the judge identified five principles: ‘[1] Each contestant in a lawful sporting contest (and in particular a race) owes a duty of care to each and all other contestants. [2] That duty is to exercise in the course of the contest all care that is objectively reasonable in the prevailing circumstances for the avoidance of infliction of injury to such fellow contestants. [3] The prevailing circumstances are all such properly attendant upon the contest and include its object, the demands inevitably made upon its contestants, its inherent dangers (if any), its rules, conventions and customs, and the standards, skills and judgment reasonably to be expected of a contestant. Thus in the particular case of a horse race the prevailing circumstances will include the contestant’s obligation to ride a horse over a given course competing with the remaining contestants for the best possible placing, if not for a win. Such must further include the Rules of Racing and the standards, skills and judgment of a professional jockey, all as expected by fellow contestants. [4] Given the nature of such prevailing circumstances the threshold for liability is in practice inevitably high; the proof of a breach of duty will not flow from proof of no more than an error of judgment or from mere proof of a momentary lapse in skill (and thus care) respectively when subject to the stresses of a race. Such are no more than incidents inherent in the nature of sport. [5] In practice it may therefore be difficult to prove any such breach of duty absent proof of conduct that in point of fact amounts to reckless disregard for the fellow contestant’s safety. I emphasise the distinction between the expression of legal principle and the practicalities of the evidential burden.’
Held: The formulation was correct.
The fact that a jockey has ridden his horse in breach of the rules of racing does not decide the issue of liability and, while non-compliance with the rules, conventions or customs is necessarily a consideration to be attended to upon the question of reasonableness, it is only one consideration, and it may be of much or little or even no weight in the circumstances of a particular race.
The threshold for liability was high: ‘there will be no liability for errors of judgment, oversights or lapses of which any participant might be guilty in the context of a fast-moving contest. Something more serious is required. I do not think it is helpful to say any more than this in setting the standard of care to be expected in cases of this kind.’

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales,
(The Lord Woolf of Barnes),
Lord Justice Judge,
And,
Lord Justice Tuckey
[2001] EWCA Civ 1054, [2002] PIQR P6
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Harrison v Vincent 1982
A sidecar passenger sued the motorcycle driver for injuries sustained during a race when he was unable to stop because he missed his gear and his brakes failed at the same time.
Held: The court approved the Wooldridge approach as the . .
Cited – Condon v Basi CA 30-Apr-1985
The parties were playing football. The defendant executed a late dangerous and foul tackle on the plaintiff breaking his leg. The defendant was sent off, and the plaintiff sued.
Held: Those taking part in competitive sport still owed a duty of . .
Cited – Wooldridge v Sumner CA 1963
A spectator was injured at a horse show.
Held: The court considered the defence of volenti non fit injuria: ‘The maxim in English law presupposes a tortious act by the defendant. The consent that is relevant is not consent to the risk of . .
Cited – Wilks v Cheltenham Homeguard Motor Cycle and Light Car Club CA 1971
The plaintiff was a spectator at a motorcycle scramble race, and was injured.
Held: Edmund Davies LJ said: ‘although in the very nature of things the competitor is all out to win and that is exactly what the spectators expect of him, it is in . .
Cited – Smoldon v Whitworth and Nolan CA 17-Dec-1996
The claimant sued another player and the referee at a colts rugby match in which he was badly injured when the scrum collapsed. The claim against the player was dismissed, but the referee was found liable and he now appealed.
Held: The . .
Cited – Caldwell v Maguire and Fitzgerald CA 27-Jun-2001
The claimant, a professional jockey, had been injured when he was unseated as a result of manoeuvres by two fellow jockeys. At trial the judge identified five principles: ‘[1] Each contestant in a lawful sporting contest (and in particular a race) . .

Cited by:
Cited – Blake v Galloway CA 25-Jun-2004
The claimant was injured whilst playing about with other members of his band throwing sticks at each other. The defendant appealed against a denial of his defence on non fit injuria.
Held: The horseplay in which the five youths were engaged . .
Cited – Caldwell v Maguire and Fitzgerald CA 27-Jun-2001
The claimant, a professional jockey, had been injured when he was unseated as a result of manoeuvres by two fellow jockeys. At trial the judge identified five principles: ‘[1] Each contestant in a lawful sporting contest (and in particular a race) . .
Cited – Tylicki v Gibbons QBD 21-Dec-2021
. .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.188804

Smoldon v Whitworth and Another: QBD 23 Apr 1996

A claim was brought against a player and a referee in a rugby match when a scrum collapsed. A rugby referee at a colts game has a duty of care to players as regards scrimmaging.

Times 23-Apr-1996, (1997) ELR 249
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Smoldon v Whitworth and Nolan CA 17-Dec-1996
The claimant sued another player and the referee at a colts rugby match in which he was badly injured when the scrum collapsed. The claim against the player was dismissed, but the referee was found liable and he now appealed.
Held: The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Personal Injury

Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.89352

Coventry University v Mian: CA 7 Oct 2014

Appeal against a determination that the appellant, Coventry University was liable in negligence to the respondent, Dr Rubina Mian. The judge gave permission to appeal on a number of ground on the ground that the judge erred in finding the University in breach of its duty of care to Dr Mian.

Sullivan, Beatson, Sharp LJJ
[2014] EWCA Civ 1275
Bailii
England and Wales

Negligence

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537423

Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman: 4 Jul 1985

(High Court of Australia) The court considered a possible extension of the law of negligence.
Brennan J said: ‘the law should develop novel categories of negligence incrementally and by analogy with established categories. ‘
Dean J said: ‘The requirement of proximity is directed to the relationship between the parties in so far as it is relevant to the allegedly negligent act or omission of the defendant and the loss or injury sustained by the plaintiff. It involves the notion of nearness or closeness and embraces physical proximity (in the sense of space and time) between the person or property of the plaintiff and the person or property of the defendant, circumstantial proximity such as an over riding relationship of employer and employee or of a professional man and his client and what may (perhaps loosely) be referred to as causal proximity in the sense of the closeness or directness of the causal connection or relationship between the particular act or course of conduct and the loss and injury sustained. It may reflect an assumption by one party of a responsibility to take care to avoid or prevent injury, loss or damage to the person or property of another or reliance by one party upon such care being taken by the other in circumstances where the other party knew or ought to have known of that reliance. Both the identity and the relative importance of the factors which are determinative of an issue of proximity are likely to vary in different categories of case. That does not mean that there is scope for decision by reference to idiosyncratic notions of justice or morality or that it is a proper approach to treat the requirement of proximity as a question of fact to be resolved merely by reference to the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant in the particular circumstances. The requirement of a relationship of proximity serves as a touchstone and control of the categories of case in which the common law will adjudge that a duty of care is owed. Given the general circumstances of a case in a new or developing area of the law of negligence, the question what (if any) combination or combinations of factors will satisfy the requirement of proximity is a question of law to be resolved by the processes of legal reasoning, induction and deduction. On the other hand the identification of the content of that requirement in such an area should not be either ostensibly or actually divorced from notions of what is ‘fair and reasonable’ . . or from the considerations of public policy which underlie and enlighten the existence and content of the requirement.’
Mason J said: ‘although a public authority may be under a public duty, enforceable by mandamus, to give proper consideration to the question whether it should exercise a power, this duty cannot be equated with, or regarded as a foundation for imposing, a duty of care on the public authority in relation to the exercise of the power. Mandamus will compel proper consideration of the authority of its discretion, but that is all.’
Brennan J pointed out that the statutory duty of a local authority to approve building plans could not be made the basis of a general duty to protect a subsequent purchaser against even foreseeable problems in the course of construction: ‘It is impermissible to postulate a duty of care to avoid one kind of damage – say, personal injury – and, finding the defendant guilty of failing to discharge that duty, to hold him liable for the damage actually suffered that is of another and independent kind – say, economic loss. Not only may the respective duties differ in what is required to discharge them; the duties may be owed to different persons or classes of persons. That is not to say that a plaintiff who suffers damage of some kind will succeed or fail in an action to recover damages according to his classification of the damage he suffered. The question is always whether the defendant was under a duty to avoid or prevent that damage, but the actual nature of the damage suffered is relevant to the existence and extent of any duty to avoid or prevent it.’

Brennan J, Dean J, Mason J
[1985] 50 ALR 1, (1985) 157 CLR 424
Austlii
Australia
Cited by:
Approved – Stovin v Wise, Norfolk County Council (Third Party) HL 24-Jul-1996
Statutory Duty Does Not Create Common Law Duty
The mere existence of statutory power to remedy a defect cannot of itself create a duty of care to do so. A highway authority need not have a duty of care to highway users because of its duty to maintain the highway. The two stage test ‘involves . .
Cited – Binod Sutradhar v Natural Environment Research Council CA 20-Feb-2004
The defendant council had carried out research into a water supply in India in the 1980s. The claimant drank the water, and claimed damages for having consumed arsenic in it.
Held: There is a close link between the tests in law for proximity . .
Cited – Gorringe v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council HL 1-Apr-2004
Statutory Duty Not Extended by Common Law
The claimant sought damages after a road accident. The driver came over the crest of a hill and hit a bus. The road was not marked with any warning as to the need to slow down.
Held: The claim failed. The duty could not be extended to include . .
Adopted – Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman and others HL 8-Feb-1990
Limitation of Loss from Negligent Mis-statement
The plaintiffs sought damages from accountants for negligence. They had acquired shares in a target company and, relying upon the published and audited accounts which overstated the company’s earnings, they purchased further shares.
Held: The . .
Cited – JD v East Berkshire Community Health NHS Trust and others HL 21-Apr-2005
Parents of children had falsely and negligently been accused of abusing their children. The children sought damages for negligence against the doctors or social workers who had made the statements supporting the actions taken. The House was asked if . .
Cited – HM Customs and Excise v Barclays Bank Plc HL 21-Jun-2006
The claimant had served an asset freezing order on the bank in respect of one of its customers. The bank paid out on a cheque inadvertently as to the order. The Commissioners claimed against the bank in negligence. The bank denied any duty of care. . .
Cited – Glaister and Others v Appelby-In-Westmorland Town Council CA 9-Dec-2009
The claimant was injured when at a horse fair. A loose horse kicked him causing injury. They claimed in negligence against the council for licensing the fair without ensuring that public liability insurance. The Council now appealed agaiinst a . .
Cited – Michael and Others v The Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Another SC 28-Jan-2015
The claimants asserted negligence in the defendant in failing to provide an adequate response to an emergency call, leading, they said to the death of their daughter at the hands of her violent partner. They claimed also under the 1998 Act. The . .
Cited – BPE Solicitors and Another v Hughes-Holland (In Substitution for Gabriel) SC 22-Mar-2017
The court was asked what damages are recoverable in a case where (i) but for the negligence of a professional adviser his client would not have embarked on some course of action, but (ii) part or all of the loss which he suffered by doing so arose . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Damages

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.194628

McHale v Watson: 7 Mar 1966

(High Court of Australia) A girl was injured playing tag with her friends at school. A boy threw a sharpened object which bounced off a post and hit her. The level of duty of care owed by a child was questioned: ‘The standard of care being objective, it is no answer for him, [that is a child] any more than it is for an adult, to say that the harm he caused was due to his being abnormally slow-witted, quick-tempered, absent- minded or inexperienced. But it does not follow that he cannot rely in his defence upon a limitation upon the capacity for foresight or prudence, not as being personal to himself, but as being characteristic of humanity at his stage of development and in that sense normal. By doing so he appeals to a standard of ordinariness, to an objective and not a subjective standard.’

Kitto J
[1966] ALR 513, [1966] 115 CLR 199
Austlii
Australia
Cited by:
Cited – Mullin v Richards and Birmingham City Council CA 6-Nov-1997
Two 15 year old schoolfriends were playing with rulers when one shattered and a fragment injured the eye of the other. She claimed negligence in the school. She appealed a finding that she was herself fifty per cent responsible.
Held: Although . .
Cited – Orchard v Lee CA 3-Apr-2009
The claimant appealed rejection of her claim for personal injuries. She was supervising a school playground, and was injured by a 13 year old child running backwards into her. She claimed against the boy. The judge found it to be mere horseplay.
Negligence

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.190041

Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Property Ltd: 1994

(High Court of Australia) The court treated the rule in Rylands v Fletcher as absorbed by the principles of ordinary negligence. The majority were influenced by the difficulties of interpretation and application to which the rule had given rise, the progressive weakening of the rule by judicial decision, by recognition that the law of negligence had been very greatly developed and expanded since Rylands v Fletcher was decided and by a belief that most claimants entitled to succeed under the rule would succeed in a claim for negligence anyway: ‘Where a duty of care arises under the ordinary law of negligence, the standard of care exacted is that which is reasonable in the circumstances. It has been emphasised in many cases that the degree of care under that standard necessarily varies with the risk involved and that the risk involved includes both the magnitude of the risk of an accident happening and the seriousness of the potential damage if an accident should occur . . even where a dangerous substance or dangerous activity of a kind which might attract the rule in Rylands v Fletcher is involved, the standard of care remains ‘that which is reasonable in the circumstances, that which a reasonably prudent man would exercise in the circumstances’: Adelaide Chemical and Fertiliser Co Ltd v Carlyle [1940] 64CLR514 at page 523. In the case of such substances or activities, however, a reasonably prudent person would exercise a higher degree of care. Indeed, depending upon the magnitude of the danger, the standard of ‘reasonable care’ may involve ‘a degree of diligence so stringent as to amount practically to a guarantee of safety”

Mason CJ
[1994] 120 ALR 42, (1994) 179 CLR 520
Australia
Citing:
Explained – Rylands v Fletcher HL 1868
The defendant had constructed a reservoir to supply water to his mill. Water escaped into nearby disused mineshafts, and in turn flooded the plaintiff’s mine. The defendant appealed a finding that he was liable in damages.
Held: The defendant . .

Cited by:
Cited – Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council HL 19-Nov-2003
Rylands does not apply to Statutory Works
The claimant laid a large gas main through an embankment. A large water supply pipe nearby broke, and very substantial volumes of water escaped, causing the embankment to slip, and the gas main to fracture.
Held: The rule in Rylands v Fletcher . .
Cited – LMS International Ltd and others v Styrene Packaging and Insulation Ltd and others TCC 30-Sep-2005
The claimants sought damages after their premises were destroyed when a fire started in the defendants neighbouring premises which contained substantial volumes of styrofoam. They alleged this was an unnatural use of the land.
Held: To . .
Cited – Stannard (T/A Wyvern Tyres) v Gore CA 4-Oct-2012
The defendant, now appellant, ran a business involving the storage of tyres. The claimant neighbour’s own business next door was severely damaged in a fire of the tyres escaping onto his property. The court had found him liable in strict liability . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Commonwealth, Nuisance, Negligence

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.188013

Best v Samuel Fox and Co Ltd: 1952

The court considered liability for injury to secondary victims. Lord Morton of Henryton: ‘it has never been the law of England that an invitor, who has negligently but unintentionally injured an invitee, is liable to compensate other persons who have suffered, in one way or another, as a result of the injury to the invitee. If the injured man was engaged in a business, and the injury is a serious one, the business may have to close down and the employees be dismissed; a daughter of the injured man may have to give up work which she enjoys and stay at home to nurse a father who has been transformed into an irritable invalid as a result of the injury. Such examples could easily be multiplied. Yet the invitor is under no liability to compensate such persons, for he owes them no duty and may not even know of their existence.’

Lord Morton of Henryton
[1952] AC 716, (1951) 2 KB 639, [1952] 2 All ER 394
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – White, Frost and others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire and others HL 3-Dec-1998
No damages for Psychiatric Harm Alone
The House considered claims by police officers who had suffered psychiatric injury after tending the victims of the Hillsborough tragedy.
Held: The general rules restricting the recovery of damages for pure psychiatric harm applied to the . .
Cited – JD v East Berkshire Community Health NHS Trust and others HL 21-Apr-2005
Parents of children had falsely and negligently been accused of abusing their children. The children sought damages for negligence against the doctors or social workers who had made the statements supporting the actions taken. The House was asked if . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.184754

Carr v East Sussex Fire and Rescue Authority: CA 8 Feb 2008

The caimant appealed refusal of his claim against the defendant. Each driver claimed to have entered a junction controlled by traffic lights when the lights were at green. The judge had accepted that the driver of the fire engine went through at green, and gave judgment accordingly, but also said that the claimant went through only just after the lights had turned red against him. The claimant said that these findings were inconsistent.
Held: The judge had failed to grapple with the sequencing of the lights, and made inconsistent findings. It was not for the court of appeal to choose between them, and the case was remitted.

[2008] EWCA Civ 157
Bailii
England and Wales

Road Traffic, Negligence

Updated: 20 December 2021; Ref: scu.268700

Davis v St Mary’s Demolition and Excavation Co Ltd: 1954

The defendants were demolishing some houses, behind which was an open space on which children were known to play. A child wandered onto the site and a wall fell causing injury.
Held: Although the plaintiff was a trespasser, the presence of children on the land was so likely that they were within the class of people to whom a duty of care was owed. A building in course of demolition is an allurement. Precautions should have been taken, and the defendant was liable.

[1954] 1 All ER 57, [1954] 1 WLR 592, 98 Sol Jo 217
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 20 December 2021; Ref: scu.182868

A J Allan (Blairnyle) Ltd and Another v Strathclyde Fire Board: SCS 2 Sep 2014

Outer House – The pursuers seek damages in respect of loss caused by fire in a farmhouse and outbuildings owned by them. The damage occasioned by the fire is averred to have been caused as a result of fault and negligence of the defenders who are a joint fire and rescue board responsible, inter alia, for the provision of fire services in Strathclyde region. The parties now disputed the relevance of the proceedings.

Lord Brailsford
[2014] ScotCS CSOH – 135
Bailii

Scotland, Negligence

Updated: 20 December 2021; Ref: scu.536364

Winstanley v Sleeman and Another: QBD 13 Dec 2013

The claimant’s PhD thesis had initially failed, but on an internal appeal that decision was reversed, the appellate body accepting the contention that the supervision or other arrangements during his period of study had been unsatisfactory. The defendants no wapplied to strike out a clai for negligence.
Held: The application failed: ‘If a university fails to take proper care of a student’s career by falling short in the delivery of the processes involved in obtaining the qualification for which the student is studying, why is it not arguable that it is foreseeable that the claimant will suffer some loss or injury as a result? The nature of the injury need not, as a matter of law be foreseeable but the possibility of injury of some description is surely foreseeable, or at least arguably so.’

Saffman HHJ
[2013] EWHC B43 (QB), [2013] EWHC 4792 (QB)
Bailii
Senior Courts Act 1981 9
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Siddiqui v University of Oxford QBD 5-Dec-2016
The University applied to have struck out the claim by the claimant for damages alleging negligence in its teaching leading to a lower class degree than he said he should have been awarded.
Held: Strike out on the basis that the claim was . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Education, Negligence

Updated: 20 December 2021; Ref: scu.535721

Bottomley v Bannister: CA 1932

The deceased man, the father of the plaintiff, had taken an unfurnished house from the defendants, who had installed a gas boiler with a special gas-burner which if properly regulated required no flue. The deceased and his wife were killed by fumes from the apparatus.
Held: The apparatus was part of the realty and the landlord did not know of the danger, and was not liable. The court discussed the result if it had ben a chattel. It was not easy to reconcile all the authorities, and there was no authority binding on the Court of Appeal that a person selling an article which he did not know to be dangerous can be held liable to a person with whom he has made no contract by reason of the fact that reasonable inquiries might have enabled him to discover that the article was in fact dangerous.
The general rule at common law was also applied by analogy to a vendor of land. Scrutton LJ said: ‘Now it is at present well established English law that, in the absence of express contract, a landlord of an unfurnished house is not liable to his tenant, or a vendor of real estate to his purchaser, for defects in the house or land rendering it dangerous or unfit for occupation, even if he has constructed the defects himself or is aware of their existence. ‘

Greer LJ , Scrutton LJ
[1932] 1 KB 458
Lord Campbell’s ActFatal Accidents Act 1846
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Donoghue (or M’Alister) v Stevenson HL 26-May-1932
Decomposed Snail in Ginger Beer Bottle – Liability
The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Land

Updated: 18 December 2021; Ref: scu.188796

DSD and Another v The Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis: QBD 23 Jul 2014

The court had found the defendant liable for a breach of the claimants’ human rights in that its negligent investigations had led to further rapes and sexual assaults by an offender. The court now considered what damages might be payable.

Green J
[2014] EWHC 2493 (QB)
Bailii
Human Rights Act 1998
England and Wales
Citing:
Liability Judgment – DSD and Another v The Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis QBD 28-Feb-2014
The claimants sought damages alleging negligent failure by the police to investigate and find a serial rapist.
Held: The claim succeeded. The claimants were entitled to damages from the defendant, the Commissioner of the Police of the . .

Cited by:
Appeal from – The Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis v DSD and NBV and Others CA 30-Jun-2015
The claimants alleged that they had been victims of rapes after the defendant police force had negligently failed to properly investigate a series of similar crimes. They said that the failures had infringed their article 3 rights. The Commissioner . .
At First Instance – Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis v DSD and Another SC 21-Feb-2018
Two claimants had each been sexually assaulted by a later notorious, multiple rapist. Each had made complaints to police about their assaults but said that no effective steps had been taken to investigate the serious complaints.
Held: The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Human Rights, Negligence, Damages

Updated: 17 December 2021; Ref: scu.535242

Glaister and Others v Appelby-In-Westmorland Town Council: CA 9 Dec 2009

The claimant was injured when at a horse fair. A loose horse kicked him causing injury. They claimed in negligence against the council for licensing the fair without ensuring that public liability insurance. The Council now appealed agaiinst a finding that they were liable, saying that this had been a wrongful extension of the law of negligence.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The Council owed the claimant no duty of care as asserted.
Toulson LJ said: ‘The fact that this is a novel claim is not necessarily fatal because the categories of negligence are never closed. But the Privy Council and the House of Lords have approved the well-known judgment of Brennan J in Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman (1985) 60 ALR 1, 43-44, where he expressed the view that: ‘the law should develop novel categories of negligence incrementally and by analogy with established categories, rather than by a massive extension of a prima facie duty of care restrained only by indefinable ‘considerations which ought to negative, or to reduce or limit the scope of the duty or the class of the person to whom it is owed’. See Yuen Kun Yeu v Attorney General of Hong Kong [1988] AC 175, 191 and Caparo (618, 633-634).
As Lord Oliver observed in Caparo (634), Brennan J was echoing a theme expressed in Hedley Byrne and Co Limited v Heller and Partners Limited [1964] AC 465 by Lord Devlin, whose speech in that case has come to be seen as particularly significant. (See the observations of Lord Goff in Henderson v Merrett Syndicates Limited [1995] 2 AC 145, 178 and ff.) In Caparo (634-635) Lord Oliver cited a lengthy passage from Lord Devlin’s speech about the development of the law since Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, in which he concluded:
‘The real value of Donoghue v Stevenson to the argument in this case is that it shows how the law can be developed to solve particular problems. Is the relationship between the parties in this case such that it can be brought within a category giving rise to a special duty? As always in English law, the first step in such an enquiry is to see how far the authorities have gone, for new categories in the law do not spring into existence overnight.’
Lord Oliver in an important passage . . observed that the extension of the concept of negligence since the decision in Hedley Byrne to cover cases of pure economic loss had given rise to ‘a considerable and as yet unsolved difficulty of definition’. The postulate of a simple duty to avoid any harm that was, with hindsight, reasonably capable of being foreseen was untenable without the imposition of some intelligible limits to keep the law of negligence within the bounds of common sense and practicality. He observed that those limits had been found by the requirement of what has been called a ‘relationship of proximity’ between the claimant and the defendant and by the imposition of a further requirement that the attachment of liability for the harm which had occurred be ‘just and reasonable’. But it was impossible to identify some common dominator by which the existence of the essential relationship could be tested, and that ‘to search for any single formula which will serve as a general test of liability is to pursue a will-of-the-wisp’. The most that could be attempted is a broad categorisation of the decided cases according to the type of situation in which liability has been established in the past in order to found an argument by analogy.
These words needs to be emphasised because there is sometimes a tendency (as the present case shows) to pluck out the words ‘fair, just and reasonable’ as if they provide some comprehensive touchstone. In itself, the expression means little more than that the court should only impose a duty of care if it considers it right to do so. The various speeches in Customs and Excise Commissioners v Barclays Bank plc [2006] UKHL 28, [2007] 1 AC 181 underline the point that the ‘threefold test’ provides no straightforward answer to the question whether in a novel situation a party owes a duty of care (Lord Bingham at 6, Lord Hoffmann at 35-36, Lord Rodger at 53, Lord Walker at 71 and Lord Mance at 93). In considering whether there is sufficient ‘proximity’ to make it just and reasonable to impose a duty of care, the courts examine carefully the nature of the relationship between the parties and begin by considering whether it is reasonably analogous to other cases in which such a duty has been recognised. The court is looking to see whether there is ‘that special relationship of proximity which is required to give rise to the duty of care’ to protect the claimant from economic loss (using the language of Lord Oliver in Caparo at 650F) – which is another way of framing the question posed by Lord Devlin in Hedley Byrne ‘Is the relationship between the parties in this case such that it can be brought within a category giving rise to a special duty?’ . . For a duty of care to arise, there needs to be something particular about the relationship between the defendant and the claimant, in relation to some particular transaction or activity likely to have economic consequences for the claimant, such that the claimant can properly expect to be entitled to rely on the defendant to safeguard him from economic harm likely to result from want of care on the part of the defendant. This need is reflected by the usage of the words ‘special duty’ or ‘special relationship. There was no such relationship in the present case between the Town Council and the many tens of thousands of members of the general public, including the claimants, who visited the fair.’

Lord Neuberger, MR, Toulson, Jacob LJJ
[2009] EWCA Civ 1325, [2009] NPC 143, [2010] PIQR P6
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman and others HL 8-Feb-1990
Limitation of Loss from Negligent Mis-statement
The plaintiffs sought damages from accountants for negligence. They had acquired shares in a target company and, relying upon the published and audited accounts which overstated the company’s earnings, they purchased further shares.
Held: The . .
Cited – Dorset Yacht Co Ltd v Home Office HL 6-May-1970
A yacht was damaged by boys who had escaped from the supervision of prison officers in a nearby Borstal institution. The boat owners sued the Home Office alleging negligence by the prison officers.
Held: Any duty of a borstal officer to use . .
Cited – Gwilliam v West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Others CA 24-Jul-2002
The claimant sought damages. She had been injured after the negligent erection of a stand which was known to be potentially hazardous. The contractor was uninsured, and the claimant sought damages from the Hospital which had arranged the fair in its . .
Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .
Cited – Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman 4-Jul-1985
(High Court of Australia) The court considered a possible extension of the law of negligence.
Brennan J said: ‘the law should develop novel categories of negligence incrementally and by analogy with established categories. ‘
Dean J said: . .
Cited – Yuen Kun-Yeu v Attorney-General of Hong Kong PC 1987
(Hong Kong) The claimant deposited money with a licensed deposit taker, regulated by the Commissioner. He lost his money when the deposit taker went into insolvent liquidation. He said the regulator was responsible when it should have known of the . .
Cited – Naylor (T/A Mainstreet) v Payling CA 7-May-2004
The claimant was injured by a door attendant employed as an independent contractor by the defendant.
Held: The defendant’s duty in selecting an independent contractor was limited to assessing the competence of the contractor. The duties of . .
Cited – Donoghue (or M’Alister) v Stevenson HL 26-May-1932
Decomposed Snail in Ginger Beer Bottle – Liability
The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a . .
Cited – HM Customs and Excise v Barclays Bank Plc HL 21-Jun-2006
The claimant had served an asset freezing order on the bank in respect of one of its customers. The bank paid out on a cheque inadvertently as to the order. The Commissioners claimed against the bank in negligence. The bank denied any duty of care. . .
Cited – Naylor (T/A Mainstreet) v Payling CA 7-May-2004
The claimant was injured by a door attendant employed as an independent contractor by the defendant.
Held: The defendant’s duty in selecting an independent contractor was limited to assessing the competence of the contractor. The duties of . .
Cited – Smith v Eric S Bush, a firm etc HL 20-Apr-1989
In Smith, the lender instructed a valuer who knew that the buyer and mortgagee were likely to rely on his valuation alone. The valuer said his terms excluded responsibility. The mortgagor had paid an inspection fee to the building society and . .
Cited – Henderson v Merrett Syndicates Ltd HL 25-Jul-1994
Lloyds Agents Owe Care Duty to Member; no Contract
Managing agents conducted the financial affairs of the Lloyds Names belonging to the syndicates under their charge. It was alleged that they managed these affairs with a lack of due careleading to enormous losses.
Held: The assumption of . .

Cited by:
Cited – Michael and Others v South Wales Police and Another CA 20-Jul-2012
The deceased had called the police and said her life was under immediate threat. An officer downgraded its seriousness, and she was killed within 15 minutes by her partner, and before the officers arrived. She had sought assistance four times . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 16 December 2021; Ref: scu.383789

Binod Sutradhar v Natural Environment Research Council: CA 20 Feb 2004

The defendant council had carried out research into a water supply in India in the 1980s. The claimant drank the water, and claimed damages for having consumed arsenic in it.
Held: There is a close link between the tests in law for proximity and foreseeability. The report was a short term pilot report, and could not be used as a base for a claim in negligence. The claim was properly struck out. (Lord Justice Clarke dissenting)

Lord Justice Clarke Lord Justice Kennedy Mr Justice Wall
[2004] EWCA Civ 175, Times 19-Mar-2004, Gazette 01-Apr-2004
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Donoghue (or M’Alister) v Stevenson HL 26-May-1932
Decomposed Snail in Ginger Beer Bottle – Liability
The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a . .
Cited – Anns and Others v Merton London Borough Council HL 12-May-1977
The plaintiff bought her apartment, but discovered later that the foundations were defective. The local authority had supervised the compliance with Building Regulations whilst it was being built, but had failed to spot the fault. The authority . .
Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .
Cited – Dorset Yacht Co Ltd v Home Office HL 6-May-1970
A yacht was damaged by boys who had escaped from the supervision of prison officers in a nearby Borstal institution. The boat owners sued the Home Office alleging negligence by the prison officers.
Held: Any duty of a borstal officer to use . .
Cited – Clay v AJ Crump and Sons Ltd CA 1964
An architect, a demolition contractor and a building contractor were each held liable to an employee of building contractors for the collapse of a wall which, with the architect’s approval, demolition contractors had left standing.
Held: As . .
Cited – Stovin v Wise, Norfolk County Council (Third Party) HL 24-Jul-1996
Statutory Duty Does Not Create Common Law Duty
The mere existence of statutory power to remedy a defect cannot of itself create a duty of care to do so. A highway authority need not have a duty of care to highway users because of its duty to maintain the highway. The two stage test ‘involves . .
Cited – Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman 4-Jul-1985
(High Court of Australia) The court considered a possible extension of the law of negligence.
Brennan J said: ‘the law should develop novel categories of negligence incrementally and by analogy with established categories. ‘
Dean J said: . .
Cited – Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman and others HL 8-Feb-1990
Limitation of Loss from Negligent Mis-statement
The plaintiffs sought damages from accountants for negligence. They had acquired shares in a target company and, relying upon the published and audited accounts which overstated the company’s earnings, they purchased further shares.
Held: The . .
Cited – Murphy v Brentwood District Council HL 26-Jul-1990
Anns v Merton Overruled
The claimant appellant was a house owner. He had bought the house from its builders. Those builders had employed civil engineers to design the foundations. That design was negligent. They had submitted the plans to the defendant Council for approval . .
Cited – X (Minors) v Bedfordshire County Council; M (A Minor) and Another v Newham London Borough Council; Etc HL 29-Jun-1995
Liability in Damages on Statute Breach to be Clear
Damages were to be awarded against a Local Authority for breach of statutory duty in a care case only if the statute was clear that damages were capable of being awarded. in the ordinary case a breach of statutory duty does not, by itself, give rise . .
Cited – Siddell and Siddell v Smith Cooper and Partners (a Firm) (Lead Action) Follows and Follows v Smith Cooper and Partners (a Firm) CA 18-Dec-1998
Courts are reluctant to strike out a claim at an early stage in a developing area of law if when all the facts are know the claim might succeed. . .
Cited – JD, MAK and RK, RK and Another v East Berkshire Community Health, Dewsbury Health Care NHS Trust and Kirklees Metropolitan Council, Oldham NHS Trust and Dr Blumenthal CA 31-Jul-2003
Damages were sought by parents for psychological harm against health authorities for the wrongful diagnosis of differing forms of child abuse. They appealed dismissal of their awards on the grounds that it was not ‘fair just and reasonable’ to . .
Cited – Marc Rich and Co Ag and Others v Bishop Rock Marine Co Ltd and Others HL 6-Jul-1995
A surveyor acting on behalf of the classification society had recommended that after repairs specified by him had been carried out a vessel, the Nicholas H, should be allowed to proceed. It was lost at sea.
Held: The marine classification . .
Cited – Coulthard, Ashton Shuttleworth, and Dawes v Neville Russell (a Firm) CA 27-Nov-1997
Auditors who were in a position to advise a company’s directors as to the legality of them making loan payments to a shell company which was acquiring there shares had a duty so to advise. The directors of a company sued them for failing to warn . .
Cited – Perrett v Collins, Underwood PFA (Ulair) Limited (T/a Popular Flying Association) CA 22-May-1998
The plaintiff was a passenger in an aircraft which crashed, and there was a preliminary issue as to the liability to him of those who certified that the aircraft was fit to fly. The propeller was mismatched to the gearbox.
Held: A certifying . .
Cited – Farah and Others v Home Office, British Airways Plc and Another CA 6-Dec-1999
The applicants claimed in negligence against the Home Office after its advisers had wrongly advised the first defendants that the claimants’ travel documents were not valid. The claim was struck out, and the claimants appealed. The strike out was . .
Cited – Michael Alexander Watson v British Boxing Board of Control Ltd, World Boxing Organisation Incorporated CA 19-Dec-2000
The claimant was seriously injured in a professional boxing match governed by rules established by the defendant’s rules. Ringside medical facilities were available, but did not provide immediate resuscitation. By the time he received resuscitation . .
Cited – South Pacific Manufacturing Co Ltd v New Zealand Security Consultants and Investigations Ltd 1992
(New Zealand) Proximity in the law of negligence may consist of various forms of closeness – physical, circumstantial, causal or assumed: ‘It involves considering the relationship from the perspective of both the defendant and the claimant. At root, . .
Cited – Parkinson v St James and Seacroft University Hospital NHS Trust CA 11-Apr-2001
A mother had undergone a negligent sterilisation, and in due course she gave birth to a disabled child.
Held: The right to bodily integrity is the first and most important of the interests protected by the law of tort. The cases saying that . .

Cited by:
Appeal from – Sutradhar v Natural Environment Research Council HL 5-Jul-2006
Preliminary Report of Risk – No Duty of Care
The claimant sought damages after suffering injury after the creation of water supplies which were polluted with arsenic. He said that a report had identified the risks. The defendant said that the report was preliminary only and could not found a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 16 December 2021; Ref: scu.193885

The Bodo Community and Others v The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd: TCC 20 Jun 2014

15,000 or more claimants and claims on behalf of children, sought damages at common law and statutory compensation under the law of Nigeria in relation to oil spills from pipelines said to have been caused by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria in the Niger Delta and said to affect people living in or with connections to neighbouring areas known as Bodo and Gokana.

Akenhead J
[2014] EWHC 1973 (TCC)
Bailii
Citing:
Cited – Autologic Holdings Plc and others v Commissioners of Inland Revenue HL 28-Jul-2005
Taxpayer companies challenged the way that the revenue restricted claims for group Corporation Tax relief for subsidiary companies in Europe. The issue was awaiting a decision of the European Court. The Revenue said that the claims now being made by . .

Cited by:
Principal judgment – The Bodo Community and Others v Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd TCC 4-Jul-2014
Subsidiary judgment identifying on which issues the parties had respectively won or lost so as to allow apportionment of costs. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 16 December 2021; Ref: scu.533821

Beasley v Alexander: QBD 27 Jul 2012

Sir Raymond Jack
[2012] EWHC 2197 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Liability – Beasley v Alexander QBD 9-Oct-2012
beasley_alexanderQBD2012
The parties had disputed liability for personal injuries in a road traffic accident. The court had held the defendant liable, but held over the assessment of damages. The defendant sought to refer to the fact of his offer of settlement when . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Road Traffic, Negligence, Personal Injury

Updated: 13 December 2021; Ref: scu.463325

Condon v Basi: CA 30 Apr 1985

The parties were playing football. The defendant executed a late dangerous and foul tackle on the plaintiff breaking his leg. The defendant was sent off, and the plaintiff sued.
Held: Those taking part in competitive sport still owed a duty of care to others taking part with them. The standard of care was objective and matched the circumstances. If a player fell below the normal and expected standards he should expect to be held liable. There was an obvious breach of the defendant’s duty of care because he showed a reckless disregard of the plaintiff’s safety and his conduct fell far below the standards which might reasonably be expected of anyone playing the game. ‘The standard is objective, but objective in a different set of circumstances. Thus there will of course be a higher degree of care required of a player in a First Division football match than of a player in a Fourth Division football match.’

Sir John Donaldson MR, Stephen Brown LJ, Glidewell J
[1985] 2 All ER 253, [1985] 1 WLR 866, [1985] EWCA Civ 12
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Rootes v Shelton 1965
(High Court of Australia) Barwick CJ said: ‘By engaging in a sport or pastime the participants may be held to have accepted risks which are inherent in that sport or pastime: the tribunal of fact can make its own assessment of what the accepted . .

Cited by:
Cited – Blake v Galloway CA 25-Jun-2004
The claimant was injured whilst playing about with other members of his band throwing sticks at each other. The defendant appealed against a denial of his defence on non fit injuria.
Held: The horseplay in which the five youths were engaged . .
Cited – Caldwell v Maguire and Fitzgerald CA 27-Jun-2001
The claimant, a professional jockey, had been injured when he was unseated as a result of manoeuvres by two fellow jockeys. At trial the judge identified five principles: ‘[1] Each contestant in a lawful sporting contest (and in particular a race) . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 11 December 2021; Ref: scu.188813

Houghton v Stannard: QBD 29 Oct 2003

Mr Justice Mckinnon
[2003] EWHC 2666 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Rouse v Squires CA 22-Mar-1973
. .
Cited – Dymond v Pearce CA 13-Jan-1972
A motorcyclist crashed into the rear of a lorry stationary on the carriageway. The plaintff said that the parking of the lorry was a nuisance, and that if it had not been so parked, there would have been no accident.
Held: The appeal failed. . .
Cited – Regina v Jones, Planter and Pengelly 1991
. .

Cited by:
Cited – Hughes v Guise Motors Ltd QBD 1-Nov-2007
The claimant’s car had cut out while being driven on a motorway. The driver had been able to pull onto chevrons at a junction but not onto the hard shoulder. The defendant drove into the rear of the vehicle.
Held: The driver had attempted to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Road Traffic, Negligence

Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.263159

Saunders v Holborn District Board of Works: QBD 1895

Mr Saunders was injured when he slipped on an icy pavement, and claimed damages.
Held: A breach of the duty to remove snow did not give rise to a private law cause of action, any more than a breach of the duty to maintain the highway. Before the 1891 Act (Charles J) ‘it was not the duty of the sanitary authority to take any steps to clear the streets of ice and snow.’ It was a duty, which ‘formerly rested upon the householders.’ (Mathew J)

Charles J, Mathew J
[1895] 1 QB 6
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Goodes v East Sussex County Council HL 16-Jun-2000
The claimant was driving along a road. He skidded on ice, crashed and was severely injured. He claimed damages saying that the Highway authority had failed to ‘maintain’ the road.
Held: The statutory duty on a highway authority to keep a road . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Nuisance, Negligence

Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.244698

Helen Green v DB Group Services (UK) Ltd: QBD 1 Aug 2006

The claimant sought damages from her former employers, asserting that workplace bullying and harassment had caused injury to her health. She had had a long term history of depression after being abused as a child, and the evidence was conflicting, but she said that the renewed depression arose after many low level acts of exclusion by fellow employees.
Held: The claim succeeded. The claimant ‘was subjected to a relentless campaign of mean and spiteful behaviour designed to cause her distress’ and ‘the connection between the nature of the employment of the women in question and the behaviour in issue was so close that it would be just and reasonable to hold the defendant liable for it. ‘ and ‘Bullying can take many forms. As I have already observed, and as was acknowledged by the claimant, the incidents upon which she relies when viewed individually are not of major significance. It is their cumulative effect that is of importance. His behaviour to her was domineering, disrespectful, dismissive, confrontatory, and designed to undermine and belittle her in the view of others. I am satisfied that such a course of conduct pursued over a considerable period amounted to bullying within the ordinary meaning of the term. ‘ Accordingly the claimant stands to be compensated for two major episodes of depressive disorder followed by a period of four years in which she has not been well enough to return to work and in which her capacity to enjoy life to the full has been seriously disrupted in particular by the relapse in her condition in 2004. She is also entitled to be compensated for the degree to which her vulnerability to depressive disorder has been increased.

The Honourable Mr Justice Owen
[2006] EWHC 1898 (QB), [2006] IRLR 764
Bailii
Protection from Harassment Act 1997 1 7
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Garrett v Camden London Borough Council CA 16-Mar-2001
The court considered a claim for work related stress. The claimant asserted that he had been harassed, intimidated and systematically undermined: ‘Many, alas, suffer breakdowns and depressive illnesses and a significant proportion could doubtless . .
Cited – Majrowski v Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust CA 16-Mar-2005
The claimant had sought damages against his employer, saying that they had failed in their duty to him under the 1997 Act in failing to prevent harassment by a manager. He appealed a strike out of his claim.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The . .
Cited – Bernard v The Attorney General of Jamaica PC 7-Oct-2004
PC (Jamaica) The claimant had been queuing for some time to make an overseas phone call at the Post Office. Eventually his turn came, he picked up the phone and dialled. Suddenly a man intervened, announced . .
Cited – Barlow v Borough of Broxbourne QBD 2003
The claimant sought damages alleging having been bullied and harassed at work.
Held: The questions to be determined when considering whether alleged bullying and harassment give rise to a potential liability in negligence were: ‘(i) whether . .
Cited – Sutherland v Hatton; Barber v Somerset County Council and similar CA 5-Feb-2002
Defendant employers appealed findings of liability for personal injuries consisting of an employee’s psychiatric illness caused by stress at work.
Held: Employers have a duty to take reasonable care for the safety of their employees. There are . .
Cited – Thomas v News Group Newspapers Ltd and Simon Hughes CA 18-Jul-2001
A civilian police worker had reported officers for racist remarks. The newspaper repeatedly printed articles and encouraged correspondence which was racially motivated, to the acute distress of the complainant.
Held: Repeated newspaper stories . .
Cited – Lister and Others v Hesley Hall Ltd HL 3-May-2001
A school board employed staff to manage a residential school for vulnerable children. The staff committed sexual abuse of the children. The school denied vicarious liability for the acts of the teachers.
Held: ‘Vicarious liability is legal . .

Cited by:
Approved – Hammond v International Network Services UK Ltd QBD 1-Nov-2007
Peter Coulson QC J said that in order to establish harassment under the 1997 Act, there must be conduct:
i) which occurs on at least two occasions;
ii) which is targeted at the claimant;
iii) which is calculated in an objective sense . .
Cited – Rayment v Ministry of Defence QBD 18-Feb-2010
The claimant sought damages alleging harassment by officers employed by the defendant. An internal investigation had revealed considerable poor behaviour by the senior officers, and that was followed by hostile behaviour. The defendant had put up . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Personal Injury, Employment, Vicarious Liability

Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.244131

Palmer v Durnford Ford: QBD 1992

The plaintiff had consented to judgment for his opponent in a case against both the supplier and a repairer of a lorry tractor unit. They subsequently sued an engineering expert on the ground that his incompetent report had led them to advance claims on a basis that was invalid, and their solicitors for negligence in engaging an incompetent expert. The expert persuaded the district judge to strike out the claim against him on the ground that he was immune from suit.
Held: Witnesses are immune from suit in relation to their conduct as witnesses. Mr. Simon Tuckey QC said: ‘Generally I do not think that liability for failure to give careful advice to his client should inhibit an expert from giving truthful and fair evidence in court. I can see no good reason why an expert should not be liable for the advice which he gives to his client as to the merits of the claim, particularly if proceedings have not been started, and a fortiori as to whether he is qualified to advise at all.’

Mr. Simon Tuckey QC
[1992] QB 483, [1992] 2 WLR 407, [1992] 2 All ER 122
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – General Medical Council v Professor Sir Roy Meadow, Attorney General CA 26-Oct-2006
The GMC appealed against the dismissal of its proceedings for professional misconduct against the respondent doctor, whose expert evidence to a criminal court was the subject of complaint. The doctor said that the evidence given by him was . .
Cited – Jones v Kaney SC 30-Mar-2011
An expert witness admitted signing a joint report but without agreeing to it. The claimant who had lost his case now pursued her in negligence. The claimant appealed against a finding that the expert witness was immune from action.
Held: The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice, Negligence

Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.245756

Williams v Owen: QBD 1955

Mr Williams left his car overnight in the hotel garage. A fire broke out and destroyed his car.
Held: The strict liability of an innkeeper was limited to loss of his guest’s goods rather than to their destruction.
As to section 86 of the 1774 Act, he said: ‘I think that this liability of the innkeeper was a custom of the realm. It is true it is embodied in common law rules, but then common law is the legal expression of custom, and it seems to me that that also would be an answer in this particular case. I suppose that by 1774 the legislature had appreciated what Lord Goddard CJ laid down in Sochacki v Sas: ‘Everybody knows fires occur through accidents which happen without negligence on anybody’s part.’ Parliament in 1774 apparently thought it right that they should make it plain that whatever customs or usages there were to the contrary, in this country a man should not be held to be responsible for a fire which occurred accidentally – which I take to mean ‘without negligence on his part.’
Those are two points which I think would be enough to decide that there is in this case no absolute liability on the part of the innkeeper, first, because there was injury to the car and not theft or loss; and, secondly, because, in any event, as it was a fire the Act of 1774 would limit the liability of the innkeeper, so far as a fire is concerned.’

Finnemore J
[1955] 1 WLR 1293
Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act 1774 86
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Sochacki v Sas 1947
A claim was made after the escape of a fire in a domestic fireplace. The defendant had left the room for two or three hours with the fire burning, with no fire guard or fender,
Held: The use was not a non-natural use for a house, the room was . .

Cited by:
Cited – Stannard (T/A Wyvern Tyres) v Gore CA 4-Oct-2012
The defendant, now appellant, ran a business involving the storage of tyres. The claimant neighbour’s own business next door was severely damaged in a fire of the tyres escaping onto his property. The court had found him liable in strict liability . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Torts – Other

Updated: 04 December 2021; Ref: scu.512184

BP v The United Kingdom: ECHR 5 Oct 2010

The claimant said that he had been denied a remedy in British law for the damage he suffered when an unreasonable claim of sexual abuse had been persisted with despite findings otherwise.
Held: Friendly settlement on payment of agreed damages and costs.

Lech Garlicki, P
[2010] ECHR 1685
Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights
Citing:
Questions – BP v The United Kingdom ECHR 17-Dec-2009
The applicant had been wrongly accused of sexual abuse. The allegations persisted despite absence of evidence and findings to the contrary. He sought damages for the considerable disruption of his life, but his claim failed in the light of . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Human Rights, Negligence

Updated: 04 December 2021; Ref: scu.526349

Northumbrian Water Ltd v Mcalpine Ltd: CA 20 May 2014

Appeal against an order dismissing the appellant’s claim against the respondent for loss and damage caused by an escape of concrete from a building site into one of its public sewers.

Moore-Bick, McFarlane, Christopher Clarke LJJ
[2014] EWCA Civ 685
Bailii
England and Wales

Negligence, Nuisance

Updated: 03 December 2021; Ref: scu.525638

Ovu v London Underground Ltd (Duty of Care): QBD 13 Oct 2021

Safety of Stairs within Undergrounds Care of duty

The Claimant sued the London Underground company because their relative Mr Ovu died after falling down stairs on a fire escape. It was late at night and he wandered on his own on a cold night, outdoors, onto the stairs. The staircase was in good condition. The Coroner had made recommendations about improving how the London Underground procedures worked when a person had walked onto the fire escape stairs and only one member of staff was working there. The judge had to decide whether the Deceased was a trespasser and whether London Underground company owed a duty to the Deceased to take steps to ensure his safety on the stairs in these circumstances. The Judge decided that the Deceased was a trespasser when he fell down stairs and died and that the London Underground company did not owe a relevant duty of care to him.

Master Victoria Mccloud
[2021] EWHC 2733 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Braithwaite v South Durham Steel Co Ltd and Another QBD 1958
The Plaintiff was employed by South Durham Steel as a crane driver’s mate and he was preceding a mobile crane along a railway line. Another line, in the ownership of the British Transport Commission (BTC), and not his employers, ran alongside and . .
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .
Cited – Revill v Newbery CA 2-Nov-1995
The defendant owned a shed on an allotment and slept there at night in order to protect his property from the attentions of vandals and thieves. Among other items in the shed the defendant, aged 76 at the time, kept a 12-bore shotgun and cartridges. . .
Cited – Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council and others HL 31-Jul-2003
The claimant dived into a lake, severely injuring himself. The council appealed liability, arguing that it owed him no duty of care under the Act since he was a trespasser. It had placed warning signs to deter swimmers.
Held: The council’s . .
Cited – Ratcliff v McConnell and Jones CA 30-Nov-1998
The claimant, a nineteen year old student climbed into a college property in the early hours of the morning, and then took a running dive into the shallow end of a swimming pool, suffering severe injuries. He was accompanied by friends and had been . .
Cited – Tindall and Another v Thames Valley Police and Another QBD 7-Apr-2020
Circumstances in which a duty of care arises falling upon the police in the context of their actions at the scene of a road accident caused by locally icy and dangerous road conditions as a result of a water leak and flooding. He re the Claimant . .
Cited – Spearman v Royal United Bath Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust QBD 4-Dec-2017
The Claimant suffered a hypoglycaemic attack (being Type 1 diabetic) and was taken by ambulance to the Hospital, arriving at 22.00 hours. Within 15 minutes, he had left the emergency department of the hospital, climbed five flights of stairs to a . .
Cited – Ahanonu v South East London and Kent Bus Company Ltd CA 23-Jan-2008
Laws LJ said that the duty to take reasonable care can sometimes look more like a ‘guarantee of the Claimant’s safety’ when evaluated by reference to ‘ . . fine considerations elicited in the leisure of the court room, perhaps with the liberal use . .
Cited – Keown v Coventry Healthcare NHS Trust CA 2-Feb-2006
The claimant a young boy fell from a fire escape on the defendant’s building. He suffered brain damage and in later life was convicted of sexual offences.
Held: His claim failed: ‘there was no suggestion that the fire escape was fragile or had . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 03 December 2021; Ref: scu.669707

DSD and Another v The Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis: QBD 28 Feb 2014

The claimants sought damages alleging negligent failure by the police to investigate and find a serial rapist.
Held: The claim succeeded. The claimants were entitled to damages from the defendant, the Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis, as a result of failures by the police properly to investigate serious sexual assaults which had been perpetrated against them. The claims were founded on the propositions that (i) article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights carries with it an obligation on the state to carry out an effective investigation when it receives a credible allegation that serious harm has been caused to an individual, and (ii) there were serious defects in the police investigation of the assaults on the claimants.
Green J explained, with reference to the MC case, he binary nature of the positive obligation arising under articles 3 and 8: ‘ . . There were two relevant aspects. First, whether the state of Bulgarian law on rape was so flawed as to amount to a breach of the state’s positive obligation under articles 3 and 8 (the systemic failings). Secondly, to consider whether the alleged shortcomings in the investigation were, also, so flawed as also to amount to a breach of the state’s obligations under the same articles (the operational failings). Under the heading ‘general approach’ the court explained that the duty to create a corpus of law and the duty to ‘apply them in practice’ through investigation and punishment were separate . . ‘

Green J
[2014] EWHC 436 (QB)
Bailii
Human Rights Act 7 8, European Convention on Human Rights
England and Wales
Citing:
Explained – MC v Bulgaria ECHR 4-Dec-2003
The applicant complained that she had been raped by two men when she was 14 years old. The men were interviewed but it was concluded that they had not used threats or violence and there was no evidence of resistance. The district prosecutor issued a . .

Cited by:
Liability Judgment – DSD and Another v The Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis QBD 23-Jul-2014
The court had found the defendant liable for a breach of the claimants’ human rights in that its negligent investigations had led to further rapes and sexual assaults by an offender. The court now considered what damages might be payable. . .
See Also – The Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis v DSD and NBV and Others CA 30-Jun-2015
The claimants alleged that they had been victims of rapes after the defendant police force had negligently failed to properly investigate a series of similar crimes. They said that the failures had infringed their article 3 rights. The Commissioner . .
At First Instance (Liability) – Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis v DSD and Another SC 21-Feb-2018
Two claimants had each been sexually assaulted by a later notorious, multiple rapist. Each had made complaints to police about their assaults but said that no effective steps had been taken to investigate the serious complaints.
Held: The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Negligence, Human Rights

Updated: 01 December 2021; Ref: scu.521949

Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa: SC 5 Dec 2018

The claimant appellants, arranged shipment of bagged Colombian green coffee beans, stowed in 20 unventilated 20-foot containers from Panama to Rotterdam, Hamburg or Bremerhaven for on carriage to Bremen. The bill of lading for each consignment covered the entire carriage.
Such beans were commonly carried in either ventilated or unventilated containers. Unventilated containers were specified by the shippers of these cargoes. In unventilated containers traveling from warmer to cooler climates, they were likely to emit moisture and to prevent moisture damage, it was common to line the containers with an absorbent material such as Kraft paper.
Each bill of lading was governed by English law and subject to English jurisdiction. They each also incorporated the Hague Rules of 1924 and LCG/FCL (‘less than full container load/full container load’) terms applied. This means that the carrier was contractually responsible for preparing the containers for carriage and loading the bags of coffee into them.
Condensation damage was found in 18 out of the 20 containers. The cargo claimed against the carriers for breach of their duties as bailees to deliver the cargoes in the condition recorded on the bill of lading and, alternatively, breach of article III, rule 2 of the Hague Rules for failure to ‘properly and carefully load, handle, stow, carry, keep, care for, and discharge the goods carried’. They alleged negligence by the carriers for failing to use adequate or sufficient Kraft paper. The carriers pleaded ‘inherent vice’ on the ground that the coffee beans were unable to withstand the ordinary levels of condensation forming on such a voyage. In reply, the cargo owners pleaded that any inherent characteristic only led to damage because of the carrier’s negligence.
The judge, David Donaldson QC, held that there was no legal burden on the carrier to prove that the damage to the cargo was caused without negligence or due to an inherent vice, only a factual presumption of negligent damage. He found that: (i) the evidence did not establish what weight or how many layers of paper were used and (ii) there was no evidence, or generally accepted commercial
practice, as to what thickness of paper should be used. The Court of Appeal disturbed the factual findings as to commercial practice and the lack of evidence on the number of layers of lining paper in the containers, dismissing the claim by the cargo owners.
The questions on appeal to the Supreme Court were: (i) whether the cargo owners (as claimants) bear the legal burden under article III.2 of the Hague Rules and (ii) how, if at all, is the legal burden altered by the article IV.2(m) ‘inherent vice’ exception?
Held: The appeal succeeded. The legal burden of disproving negligence rests on the carrier, both for the purpose of article III.2 and article IV.2 of the Hague Rules.
Held: The appeal succeeded: ‘ the carrier had the legal burden of proving that he took due care to protect the goods from damage, including due care to protect the cargo from damage arising from inherent characteristics such as its hygroscopic character. I would reinstate the deputy judge’s conclusions about the practice of the trade in the lining of unventilated containers for the carriage of bagged coffee and the absence of evidence that the containers were dressed with more than one layer of lining paper. In the absence of evidence about the weight of the paper employed, it must follow that the carrier has failed to prove that the containers were properly dressed.’

Lord Reed, Deputy President, Lord Wilson, Lord Sumption, Lord Hodge, Lord Kitchin
[2018] UKSC 61, [2018] 3 WLR 2087, [2019] 1 All ER (Comm) 397, [2019] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 21, [2018] WLR(D) 779, [2019] AC 358, [2019] 2 All ER 81, [2018] UKSC 61
Bailii, Bailii Summary, WLRD, SC, SC Summary, SC Summary Video, SC 2018 Oct 3 am Video, SC 2018 Oct 3 pm Videos, SC 4 Oct 2018 pm Video
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Coggs v Bernard ER 235 1738
A pawnee of any pawn or pledge hath a property in it ; for the thing deposited is a security to him, that he shall be repaid the money lent on it. Arid if things will riot be the worse, as jewels, and co he may use them ; but then it must be at his . .
At ComC – Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa (T/A Csav) ComC 5-Mar-2015
Coffee beans damaged in transit – onus of proof of liability in negligence . .
Cited – Reeve v Palmer 25-Jun-1858
It is no answer for an attorney, when sued in detinue for a deed which has been intrusted to him by a client, to say simply that he has lost it.
Cockburn CJ said: ‘The jury have found that he lost it: and I am of opinion that that must be taken . .
Cited – Morison, Pollexfen and Blair v Walton 10-May-1909
. .
Cited – Dollar v Greenfield HL 19-May-1905
The plaintiff, a job master, for several years let carriages and Horses to the defendant by the year and let to the defendant a pair of horses, which were quiet in harness and satisfactory to the defendant’s coachman and stop the horses were kept in . .
Cited – Joseph Travers and Sons Ltd v Cooper CA 1915
Goods were loaded onto a barge from a ship for delivery at the barge owners wharf in the Thames under a contract, which exempted the barge owner from liability ‘for any damage to goods how’s the weather caused which can be covered by insurance.’ . .
Cited – Gosse Millard v Canadian Government Merchant Marine 1927
Wright J said of the Hague Rules: ‘These Rules, which now have statutory force, have radically changed the legal status of sea carriers under bills of lading. According to the previous law, shipowners were generally common carriers, or were liable . .
Cited – The ‘RUAPEHU’ CA 1927
The plaintiffs owners of a drydock thought to limit their liability under the Merchant Seamen’s (Liability of Ship Owners and others) Act 1900 section 2 in respect of damage caused by a fire which broke out on the defendant’s vessel going to the . .
Cited – British Road Services Ltd v Arthur V Crutchley and Co Ltd (No 1) CA 1968
There was a theft from a warehouse of a valuable lorry load of high value, namely, whisky. It was held on appeal that the defendants’ system of protection was not adequate in relation to the special risks involved and the value of the chattel . .
Cited – Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa (T/A CSAV) CA 10-Nov-2016
Claim for damages to cargo of coffee beans – onus of proof of liability for negligence . .
Cited – Aktieselskabet de Danske Sukkerfabrikker v Bajamar Compania Naviera SA (The ‘TORENIA’) 1983
D’s vessel was chartered to carry a cargo of Cuban sugar in bulk. She loaded some 10000 tonnes at Guayabal. Two bills of lading were issued to the shippers. On April 4th 1979 the vessel set sail for Denmark. On April 13th she encountered heavy . .
Cited – F C Bradley and Sons Ltd v Federal Steam Navigation Co Ltd 1927
. .
Cited – Homburg Houtimport BV v Agrosin Private Ltd (the ‘Starsin’) HL 13-Mar-2003
Cargo owners sought damages for their cargo which had been damaged aboard the ship. The contract had been endorsed with additional terms. That variation may have changed the contract from a charterer’s to a shipowner’s bill.
Held: The specific . .
Cited – Great China Metal Industries Co Ltd v Malaysian International Shipping Corpn Bhd (The ‘BUNGA SEROJA’) 22-Oct-1998
High Court of Australia – Shipping – Sea carriage of goods – Bill of lading – Hague Rules – Damage to cargo – Cargo properly stowed – Vessel seaworthy and fit in all respects for voyage – Bad weather conditions foreseeable – Perils of the sea – MV . .
Cited – Silver v Ocean Steamship Co Ltd CA 1930
The Hague Rules had made no difference to the incidence of the burden of proof in cases of bailment for carriage. . .
Cited – Paterson Steamships Limited v Canadian Co-Operative Wheat Producers, Limited PC 26-Jul-1934
(Quebec) . .
Cited – GH Renton and Co Ltd v Palmyra Trading Corporation of Panama HL 1957
An agreement transferring responsibility for loading, stowage and discharge of cargo from the shipowners to shippers, charterers and consignees is not invalidated by article III, r. 8.
Lord Somervell of Harrow said as to Art III r2: ‘It is, in . .
Cited – Pyrene Co Ltd v Scindia Navigation Co Ltd QBD 1954
The fob contract has become a flexible instrument and it does not necessarily follow that the buyer is an original party to the contract of carriage. The effect of article III, r. 2 of the Hague-Visby Rules was not to override freedom of contract to . .
Cited – J Spurling Ltd v Bradshaw CA 26-Mar-1956
Denning LJ said: ‘ . . A bailor, by pleading and presenting his case properly, can always put on the bailee the burden of proof. In the case of non-delivery, for instance, all he need plead is the contract and a failure to deliver on demand. That . .
Cited – Notara v Henderson QBD 16-Feb-1872
A cargo of beans was delivered damaged by seawater. The beans had been wetted when the vessel was involved in a collision. She put into Liverpool for repairs, and it was proved that it would have been reasonable for the master temporarily to . .
Cited – Thomas Wilson Sons and Co v Owners of Cargo per the ‘Xantho’ HL 14-Jul-1887
A cause of damage otherwise satisfying the established definition may be a peril of the sea even though caused by a shipowner’s negligence. Lord Herschell said: ‘If that which immediately caused the loss was a peril of the sea, it matters not how it . .
Cited – Albacora SRL v Westcott and Laurence Line Ltd HL 1966
The case concerned damage to fish due to previously dormant bacteria being activated by rise in temperature on the voyage. The issue was whether a cargo of fish was capable of withstanding carriage in unrefrigerated spaces, that being the service . .
Not good law – The Glendarroch CA 9-Feb-1894
The plaintiffs brought an action against the defendants for non-delivery of goods shipped under a bill of lading containing the usual exceptions, but not excepting negligence. The goods had been damaged by sea water through the stranding of the . .
Cited – Nugent v Smith CA 29-May-1876
A mare carried in the hold of the ship, died as a result of a combination of more than usually bad weather and the fright of the animal herself which caused her to struggle and injure herself.
The defendant, a common carrier by sea from London . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Transport, Evidence, Negligence

Updated: 01 December 2021; Ref: scu.630953

Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa (T/A Csav): ComC 5 Mar 2015

Coffee beans damaged in transit – onus of proof of liability in negligence

David Donaldson QC,
Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge
[2015] EWHC 516 (Comm), [2016] 1 All ER (Comm) 657, [2015] 1 CLC 294, [2015] CN 461, [2015] 1 Lloyds Rep 639
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa (T/A CSAV) CA 10-Nov-2016
Claim for damages to cargo of coffee beans – onus of proof of liability for negligence . .
At ComC – Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa SC 5-Dec-2018
The claimant appellants, arranged shipment of bagged Colombian green coffee beans, stowed in 20 unventilated 20-foot containers from Panama to Rotterdam, Hamburg or Bremerhaven for on carriage to Bremen. The bill of lading for each consignment . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Transport, Negligence

Updated: 30 November 2021; Ref: scu.543896

British Road Services Ltd v Arthur V Crutchley and Co Ltd (No 1): CA 1968

There was a theft from a warehouse of a valuable lorry load of high value, namely, whisky. It was held on appeal that the defendants’ system of protection was not adequate in relation to the special risks involved and the value of the chattel bailed, and that even though they had contracted with competent third parties for the security of the warehouse during the hours of darkness the defendants had nevertheless failed to discharge the burden of proof that the loss was not due to any negligence on their part.
Otherwise: British Road Services Ltd v A Crutchley and Co Ltd and Factory Guards Ltd (Third Party)

Sachs LJ
[1968] 1 All ER 811
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa SC 5-Dec-2018
The claimant appellants, arranged shipment of bagged Colombian green coffee beans, stowed in 20 unventilated 20-foot containers from Panama to Rotterdam, Hamburg or Bremerhaven for on carriage to Bremen. The bill of lading for each consignment . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Transport, Negligence, Agency

Updated: 30 November 2021; Ref: scu.670134

Coggs v Bernard: 1703

The defendant had care of the plaintiff’s cask of brandy. He broke the cask and spilt the brandy.
Held: A bailment can exist notwithstanding that it is gratuitous, i.e. without consideration passing from the bailor to the bailee. The declaration that defendant was not a common porter and had been given nothing for his pains, was good, though there was no consideration. Gould J said: ‘The reason for the action is, the particular trust reposed in the defendant, to which he has concurred by his assumption, and in the executing which he has miscarried by his neglect.’ The historical approach of the common law to the question of negligence found its inspiration in Roman law concepts, as in the case in the law of bailment. As to the setting up of a nominal contractual obligation to obviate difficulties in negligence: ‘Secondly it is objected, that there is no consideration to ground this promise upon, and therefore the undertakings is but nudum pactum. But to this I answer, that the owner’s trusting him with the goods is a sufficient consideration to oblige him to careful management. Indeed if the agreement had been executory, to carry these brandies from one place to the other such a day, the defendant had not been bound to carry them. But this is a different case, for assumpsit does not only signify a future agreement, but in such a case as this, it signifies an actual entry upon the thing, and taking the trust upon himself. And if a man will do that, and miscarries in the performance of his trust, an action will lie against him for that, though nobody would have compelled him to do the thing.’
Holt CJ said that there were six classes of bailment.

Lord Holt CJ, Powell J
(1703) 1 Sm LC (13th Ed) 175, [1703] 1 Salk 26, [1703] 1 Com 133, [1703] Holt KB 13, [1703] 2 Ld Raym 909, [1703] 3 Salk 11, [1703] 92 ER 107, [1703] 36 Digest (Rep 1) 32
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .
Cited – Skelton v London and North Western Ry Co CCP 1867
The defendant’s railway lines crossed a public footpath. The lines were bounded by gates which swung to, as required by law, but were not as usual also fastened. The deceased stopped as one train passed, but then stepped out in front of another and . .
Cited – HM Customs and Excise v Barclays Bank Plc HL 21-Jun-2006
The claimant had served an asset freezing order on the bank in respect of one of its customers. The bank paid out on a cheque inadvertently as to the order. The Commissioners claimed against the bank in negligence. The bank denied any duty of care. . .
Cited – Yearworth and others v North Bristol NHS Trust CA 4-Feb-2009
The defendant hospital had custody of sperm samples given by the claimants in the course of fertility treatment. The samples were effectively destroyed when the fridge malfunctioned. Each claimant was undergoing chemotherapy which would prevent them . .
Cited – TRM Copy Centres (UK) Ltd and Others v Lanwall Services Ltd HL 17-Jun-2009
Each party contracted hire copiers to shops and offices. The claimant said that the defendant had interfered with their contracts by substituting their equipment. The defendants said that the claimants’ contracts were controlled by the 1974 Act, but . .
See Also – Coggs v Bernard ER 234 1738
The defendant assumpsit to take up a hogs-head of brandy in a cellar, and safely to lay it down in another cellar ; and he so negligently laid and put it down in the other cellar, that for want of care the cask was staved, and so much brandy lost. . .
See Also – Coggs v Bernard 839 1795
hogshead of brandy . .
See Also – Coggs v Bernard ER 837 1795
Casks of Brandy . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Agency

Leading Case

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.216353

Heaven v Pender, Trading As West India Graving Dock Company: CA 30 Jul 1883

Duty Arising to Use Ordinary Care and Skill

The plaintiff was a painter. His employer engaged to repaint a ship, and the defendant erected staging to support the work. The staging collapsed because one of the ropes was singed and weakened, injuring the plaintiff.
Held: The defendant had invited the plaintiff on to the land, and knew he would be using the staging. the categories of negligence are never closed
(Obiter) ‘The proposition which these recognized cases suggest, and which is, therefore, to be deduced from them, is that whenever one person is by circumstances placed in such a position with regard to another that every one of ordinary sense who did think would at once recognize that if he did not use ordinary care and skill in his own conduct with regard to those circumstances he would cause danger of injury to the person or property of the other, a duty arises to use ordinary care and skill to avoid such danger . . Let us apply this proposition to the case of one person supplying goods or machinery, or instruments or utensils, or the like, for the purpose of their being used by another person, but with whom there is no contract as to the supply. The proposition will stand thus: whenever one person supplies goods, or machinery or the like, for the purpose of their being used by another person under such circumstances that everyone of ordinary sense would, if he thought, recognize at once that unless he used ordinary care and skill with regard to the condition of the thing supplied or the mode of supplying it, there will be danger of injury to the person or property of him for whose use the thing is supplied, and who is to use it, a duty arises to use ordinary care and skill as to the condition or manner of supplying such thing. And for a neglect of such ordinary care or skill whereby injury happens a legal liability arises to be enforced by an action for negligence. This includes the case of goods, etc., supplied to be used immediately by a particular person or persons or one of a class of persons, where it would be obvious to the person supplying, if he thought, that the goods would in all probability be used at once by such persons before a reasonable opportunity for discovering any defect which might exist, and where the thing supplied would be of such a nature that a neglect of ordinary care or skill as to its condition or the manner of supplying it would probably cause danger to the person or property of the person for whose use it was supplied, and who was about to use it. It would exclude a case in which the goods are supplied under circumstances in which it would be a chance by whom they would be used or whether they would be used or not, or whether they would be used before there would probably be means of observing any defect, or where the goods would be of such a nature that a want of care or skill as to their condition or the manner of supplying them would not probably produce danger of injury to person or property. The cases of vendor and purchaser and lender and hirer under contract need not be considered, as the liability arises under the contract, and not merely as a duty imposed by law, though it may not be useless to observe that it seems difficult to import the implied obligation into the contract except in cases in which if there were no contract between the parties the law would according to the rule above stated imply the duty.’
Cotton LJ said: ‘In declining to concur in laying down the principle enunciated by the Master of the Rolls, I in no way intimate any doubt as to the principle that anyone who leaves a dangerous instrument, as a gun, in such a way as to cause danger, or who without due warning supplies to others for use an instrument or thing which to his knowledge, from its construction or otherwise, is in such a condition as to cause danger, not necessarily incident to the use of such an instrument, or thing, is liable for injury caused to others by reason of his negligent act.’

Brett MR, Cotton LJ, Bowen LJ
(1883) 11 QBD 503, 52 LJQB 702, 49 LT 357, 47 JP 709, [1883] UKLawRpKQB 117
Commonlii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Indermaur v Dames QBD 1866
The court set out an occupier of land’s duty towards his invitees: ‘And, with respect to such a visitor at least, we consider it settled law, that he, using reasonable care on his part for his own safety, is entitled to expect that the occupier . .
Cited – Winterbottom v Wright 1842
Owing to negligence in the construction of a carriage it broke down. A third party sought damages for injuries which he alleged were due to negligence in the work.
Held: The doctrine of privity of contract precluded actions in tort by third . .
Cited – Smith v London and St Katharine Docks Co 1868
The plaintiff sought damages after being injuring crossing a gangway onto a ship.
Held: The defendant had invited the plaintiff to the property and must have known the gangway would be used for this purpose. . .
Cited – George v Skivington 1869
There was an injury to the wife, from a hair wash purchased under a contract of sale with the husband.
Held: The wife had a good cause of action. There was a duty in the vendor to use ordinary care in compounding the article sold, and that . .
Distinguished – Collis v Selden 1868
The defendant installed a chandelier in a public house. It fell and injured the plaintiff.
Held: There was nothing to say that the defendant had any knowledge that the plaintiff, as opposed to members of the public in general, would enter the . .
Distinguished – Longmeid v Holliday 1851
A defective lamp was sold to a man whose wife was injured by its explosion. The seller of the lamp, against whom the action was brought, was not the manufacturer.
Held: No general duty of care was owed by a manufacturer of a lamp to a user.
Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .
Dicta Considered – Donoghue (or M’Alister) v Stevenson HL 26-May-1932
Decomposed Snail in Ginger Beer Bottle – Liability
The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a . .
Distinguished – Le Lievre v Gould CA 6-Feb-1893
Mortgagees of the interest of a builder under a building agreement, advanced money to him from time to time, relying upon certificates given by a surveyor as to stages reached. The surveyor was not appointed by the mortgagees, and there was no . .
Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .
Cited – Michael and Others v The Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Another SC 28-Jan-2015
The claimants asserted negligence in the defendant in failing to provide an adequate response to an emergency call, leading, they said to the death of their daughter at the hands of her violent partner. They claimed also under the 1998 Act. The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Leading Case

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181277

Udale v Bloomsbury Area Health Authority: QBD 1983

The plaintiff underwent a sterilisation operation. The operation was painful and she later became pregnant. She sought damages for the pain and suffering and the additional costs of caring for the new child.
Held: Public policy held fast against awarding damages for the birth of a healthy child, and that element of damages was not recoverable.

Jupp J
[1983] 1 WLR 1098, [1983] 3 All ER 522
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – MacFarlane and Another v Tayside Health Board HL 21-Oct-1999
Child born after vasectomy – Damages Limited
Despite a vasectomy, Mr MacFarlane fathered a child, and he and his wife sought damages for the cost of care and otherwise of the child. He appealed a rejection of his claim.
Held: The doctor undertakes a duty of care in regard to the . .
Doubted – Emeh v Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Area Health Authority CA 1-Jul-1984
A sterilisation operation had been performed negligently and failed and the claimant was born.
Held: The birth of a child with congenital abnormalities was a foreseeable consequence of the surgeon’s careless failure to clip a fallopian tube . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Damages

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181335

Glasgow Corporation v Taylor: HL 18 Nov 1921

A father brought an action for damages for the death of his son who had eaten poisonous berries growing in one of the defenders’ public parks. The plants were easily accessible from a children’s play area and it was said that the defender had a duty to warn children against the danger or to prevent them from reaching the shrubs.
Held: A plea to the relevancy of the pursuer’s case was repelled.
Lord Shaw of Dunfermline said: ‘Grounds thrown open by a municipality to the public may contain objects of natural beauty, say precipitous cliffs or the banks of streams, the dangers of the resort to which are plain.’ One cannot ‘expect an occupier to provide protection against an obvious danger on his land arising from a natural feature such as a lake or a cliff and to impose a duty on him to do so.’ and ‘In grounds open to the public as of right, the duty resting upon the proprietors . . of making them reasonably safe does not include an obligation of protection against dangers which are themselves obvious. Dangers, however, which are not seen and obvious should be made the subject either of effectively restricted access or of such express and actual warning of prohibition as reaches the mind of the persons prohibited.’ The House treated artificial landscape features on the same footing as natural ones.

Lord Shaw of Dunfermline
[1922] 1 AC 44, 1922 SC (HL) 1, [1921] All ER Rep 1, [1921] UKHL 2, 1921 2 SLT 254, 29 ALR 846, [1921] UKHL 3
Bailii, Bailii
Scotland
Citing:
Approved – Stevenson v Glasgow Corporation 1908
Lord M’Laren said: ‘in a town, as well as in the country, there are physical features which may be productive of injury to careless persons or to young children against which it is impossible to guard by protective measures. The situation of a town . .

Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .
Cited – Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council and others HL 31-Jul-2003
The claimant dived into a lake, severely injuring himself. The council appealed liability, arguing that it owed him no duty of care under the Act since he was a trespasser. It had placed warning signs to deter swimmers.
Held: The council’s . .
Applied – Cotton v Derbyshire District Council CA 20-Jun-1994
No notice warning of danger was necessary on a public right of way for an obviously dangerous cliff. The Court upheld the decision of the trial judge dismissing the plaintiff’s claim for damages for serious injuries sustained from falling off a . .
Applied – Karl Andrew Whyte v Redland Aggregates Limited CA 27-Nov-1997
The appellant dived into a disused gravel pit and struck his head on an obstruction on the floor of the pit. The Court dismissed his appeal that he was not entitled to damages.
Held: ‘In my judgment, the occupier of land containing or bordered . .
Cited – Cotton v Derbyshire Dales District Council CA 10-Jun-1994
The claimant had been injured falling on land owned by the defendant. The had gone down what he must have known was not a path and fallen over a cliff. He appealed dismissal of his claim.
Held: Any notice would only have warned of the obvious . .
Cited – Woodland v Essex County Council SC 23-Oct-2013
The claimant had been seriously injured in an accident during a swimming lesson. She sought to claim against the local authority, and now appealed against a finding that it was not responsible, having contracted out the provision of swimming . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Leading Case

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181271

United Zinc and Chemical Co v Britt: 1922

There was no evidence of children being in the habit of going near the poisoned pool at issue. Speaking of trespassers, Holmes J said ‘the owner of the land would have owed no duty to remove even hidden danger; it would have been entitled to assume that they would obey the law and not trespass’

Holmes J
(1922) 258 US 268
United States
Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, International

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181336

Grand Trunk Railway Co of Canada v Barnett: PC 28 Mar 1911

In an action against the appellant railroad company for damages for personal injuries resulting from collision caused by the negligence of the appellants’ servants it appeared that the collision took place on the property of the appellants to which the train carrying the plaintiff, which belonged to another company, had access by their leave and licence. It further appeared that the plaintiff was a trespasser on the appellants’ property and also on the said train, which to his knowledge was not at the time in use as a passenger train and in which he had taken up a precarious position on the platform and step of a carriage in disobedience of a by-law of both companies.
Held: that the appellants were not liable, for no breach of duty had been shewn. The judgment of the Board refers to ‘wilful or reckless disregard of ordinary humanity rather than mere absence of reasonable care’

[1911] AC 361 PC, [1911] UKLawRpAC 12
Commonlii
Canada
Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181273

Latham v R Johnson and Nephew Ltd: CA 12 Dec 1912

The defendants were owners of a plot of unfenced waste land from which old houses had been cleared. It did not adjoin any public highway, but was accessible by a path leading from the back of the house in which the plaintiff, a child between two and three years old, lived with her parents. The public were allowed by the defendants to traverse the land, and children of all ages were in the habit of playing upon heaps of sand, stone, and other materials which from time to time were deposited there by the defendants. The plaintiff went upon the land unaccompanied by any older person and was shortly afterwards found upon a heap of paving stones, one of which had fallen upon her hand and injured it. There was no evidence to shew how the accident happened. In an action for negligence the jury found that children played upon the land with the knowledge and permission of the defendants ; that there was no invitation to the plaintiff to use the land unaccompanied; that the defendants ought to have known that there was a likelihood of children being injured by the stones ; and that the defendants did not take reasonable care to prevent children being injured thereby. Upon these findings Scrutton J. held that the case came within Cooke v Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland [1909] AC 229, and gave judgment for the plaintiff with damages.
Held: on appeal, that, there being neither allurement nor trap, nor invitation, nor dangerous object placed upon the land, the defendants were not liable.
The court considered what arrangements might constitute a trap on land which might attract children. Hamilton LJ said: ‘What objects which attract infants to their hurt are traps even to them? Not all objects with which children hurt themselves simpliciter. A child can get into mischief and hurt itself with anything if it is young enough. In some cases the answer may rest with the jury, but it must be a matter of law to say whether a given object can be a trap in the double sense of being fascinating and fatal. No strict answer has been, or perhaps ever will be, given to the question, but I am convinced that a heap of paving stones in broad daylight in a private close cannot so combine the properties of temptation and retribution as to be properly called a trap.’

Hamilton LJ, Farwell LJ
[1913] 1 KB 398, [1911-13] All ER 117, [1912] UKLawRpKQB 169
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .
Cited – White v Blackmore CA 15-Jun-1972
The plaintiff attended a jalopy car race and was injured. It was a condition of his entry that he agreed that motor racing was dangerous and that he would not hold the organisers or others responsible if injured. He was injured when a safety rope, . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181275

Jones v Lawton: QBD 20 Dec 2013

The claimant motor-cyclist was badly injured. He was going along the outside of a chain of vehicles from out of which the defendant driver emerged and the two crashed. Each said the other was entirely at fault.
Held: By riding at or about 30mph Mr Jones was going far too fast. He should have been riding at a speed which would have enabled him to slow down or stop should a vehicle emerge unexpectedly from his left. Mr Lawton was at fault because he failed to take into account the possibility that a motorcycle might be approaching and began to execute his right turn without taking the precautions necessary to reduce the risk of a collision. His failures caused the collision. Liability apportioned accordingly.

Burnett J
[2013] EWHC 4108 (QB)
Bailii

Negligence

Updated: 28 November 2021; Ref: scu.519772

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, that the possibility of injury to children playing on such an object was foreseeable. The judge had also found a particular danger of an older boy seeking to prop it up and repair it. The council had argued that this latter event was unforseeable.
Held: The Court of Appeal had not been justified in disturbing the Judge’s finding of fact. Given the ingenuity of children for mischief, mischief which went beyond that foreseen, but which was of the same type, was capable of leaving the authority liable under the Act.
There was no social value or cost saving to the Council in creating a risk by leaving a derelict boat lying about. It was something which they ought to have removed whether it created a risk of injury or not. They were liable for an injury which, though foreseeable, was not particularly likely. Foreseeability does not denote a fixed point on the scale of probability.

Lord Browne-Wilkinson Lord Mackay of Clashfern Lord Steyn Lord Hoffmann Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough
Times 24-May-2000, Gazette 08-Jun-2000, [2000] 1 WLR 1082, [2000] UKHL 31, [2000] 3 All ER 409
House of Lords, Bailii
Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 2(2)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Regina v London Borough of Sutton, ex parte Jolley CA 19-Jun-1998
The plaintiff, a boy, was injured when playing on a derelict boat left on council land. The council appealed an award of damages against it.
Held: A local authority may be liable for injury caused by a derelict boat not removed from their land . .
First instance – Jolley v Sutton London Borough Council QBD 1998
The claimant, a boy was injured when playing around a boat abandoned on land owned by the defendant. He had propped it up to attempt a repair, and was crushed when it fell on him. He said that in not removing the boat they had been negligent.
Cited – Donoghue (or M’Alister) v Stevenson HL 26-May-1932
Decomposed Snail in Ginger Beer Bottle – Liability
The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a . .
Cited – Bolton v Stone HL 10-May-1951
The plaintiff was injured by a prodigious and unprecedented hit of a cricket ball over a distance of 100 yards. He claimed damages in negligence.
Held: When looking at the duty of care the court should ask whether the risk was not so remote . .
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 – 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 – Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Miller Steamship Co Pty (The Wagon Mound) (No 2) PC 25-May-1966
(New South Wales) When considering the need to take steps to avoid injury, the court looked to the nature of defendant’s activity. There was no social value or cost saving in this defendant’s activity. ‘In the present case there was no justification . .

Cited by:
Cited – Groom v Selby CA 18-Oct-2001
The defendant negligently failed to discover the claimant’s pregnancy. A severely disabled child was born. The question was as to the responsibility for payment of excess costs of raising a severely disabled child, a claim for economic loss. The . .
Cited – Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council and others HL 31-Jul-2003
The claimant dived into a lake, severely injuring himself. The council appealed liability, arguing that it owed him no duty of care under the Act since he was a trespasser. It had placed warning signs to deter swimmers.
Held: The council’s . .
Cited – The Attorney General v Hartwell PC 23-Feb-2004
PC (The British Virgin Islands) A police officer had taken the police revolver, and used it to shoot the claimant. It was alleged that the respondent police force were vicariously liable for his acts and also . .
Cited – Gabriel v Kirklees Metropolitan Council CA 24-Mar-2004
The claimant (aged 6) sought damages after being hurt when other children playing on a building site threw stones from the site, hitting him as he passed by.
Held: The case raised questions of law and it was incumbent on the judge to provide . .
Cited – Islington London Borough Council v University College London Hospital NHS Trust CA 16-Jun-2005
The local authority sought repayment from a negligent hospital of the cost of services it had had to provide to an injured patient. They said that the hospital had failed to advise the patient to resume taking warfarin when her operation was . .
Cited – London General Holdings Ltd and others v USP Plc and Another CA 22-Jul-2005
Copyright was claimed in a draft legal agreement. Infringement was established, but the court was asked to look at the assessment of damages.
Held: ‘what is the basis upon which damages for breach of copyright are awarded? The question cannot . .
Cited – Jebson v Ministry of Defence CA 28-Jun-2000
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 . .
Cited – Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd CA 31-Mar-2006
The deceased had suffered a head injury whilst working for the defendant. In addition to severe physical consequences he suffered post-traumatic stress, became more and more depressed, and then committed suicide six years later. The claimant . .
Cited – Hone v Six Continents Retail Ltd CA 29-Jun-2005
The employer appealed a finding that it was liable in damages for negligence to the claimant, and employee who suffered psychiatric injury cause by stress at work. He said he had been left to work very excessive hours, between 89 and 92 hours a . .
Cited – Johnston v NEI International Combustion Ltd; Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Co Ltd; similar HL 17-Oct-2007
The claimant sought damages for the development of neural plaques, having been exposed to asbestos while working for the defendant. The presence of such plaques were symptomless, and would not themselves cause other asbestos related disease, but . .
Cited – Geary v JD Wetherspoon Plc QBD 14-Jun-2011
The claimant, attempting to slide down the banisters at the defendants’ premises, fell 4 metres suffering severe injury. She claimed in negligence and occupiers’ liability. The local council had waived a requirement that the balustrade meet the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence, Torts – Other

Leading Case

Updated: 27 November 2021; Ref: scu.82576

Ratcliff v McConnell and Jones: CA 30 Nov 1998

The claimant, a nineteen year old student climbed into a college property in the early hours of the morning, and then took a running dive into the shallow end of a swimming pool, suffering severe injuries. He was accompanied by friends and had been drinking, though he was not drunk.
Held: A trespasser having climbed into grounds at night and dived into a swimming pool without knowing the depth accepted responsibility for his own acts. The dangers of diving into shallow water were known to adults and there was no need for a warning. The existence of a duty had to be determined by reference to the likelihood of the trespasser’s presence in the vicinity of the danger at the actual time and place of danger to him.
The Act did not include the duty to safeguard the claimant from the consequences of his own folly.
Stuart-Smith LJ said: ‘It is unfortunate that a number of high-spirited young men will take serious risks with their own safety and do things that they know are forbidden, Often they are disinhibited by drink and the encouragement of friends. It is the danger and the fact that it is forbidden that provides the thrill. But if the risk materialises they cannot blame others for their rashness.’

Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, Lord Justice Thorpe, Lord Justice Mummery
Times 03-Dec-1998, [1999] 1 WLR 670, [1997] EWCA Civ 2679
Bailii
The Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Donoghue v Folkestone Properties Limited CA 27-Feb-2003
The claimant had decided to go for a midnight swim, but was injured diving and hitting a submerged bed. The landowner appealed a finding that it was 25% liable. The claimant asserted that the defendant knew that swimmers were common.
Held: The . .
Cited – Hampstead Heath Winter Swimming Club and Another v Corporation of London and Another Admn 26-Apr-2005
Swimmers sought to be able to swim unsupervised in an open pond. The authority which owned the pond on Hampstead Heath wished to refuse permission fearing liability for any injury.
Held: It has always been a principle of the interpretation of . .
Cited – Ovu v London Underground Ltd (Duty of Care) QBD 13-Oct-2021
Safety of Stairs within Undergrounds Care of duty
The Claimant sued the London Underground company because their relative Mr Ovu died after falling down stairs on a fire escape. It was late at night and he wandered on his own on a cold night, outdoors, onto the stairs. The staircase was in good . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Torts – Other, Land, Negligence

Updated: 27 November 2021; Ref: scu.136077

Tindall and Another v Thames Valley Police and Another: QBD 7 Apr 2020

Circumstances in which a duty of care arises falling upon the police in the context of their actions at the scene of a road accident caused by locally icy and dangerous road conditions as a result of a water leak and flooding. He re the Claimant says that the Police attending the scene assumed or fell under a duty of care towards Mr Tindall. The Police say they did not.
Held: Defendants’ strike out claim refused.

Master Mccloud
[2020] EWHC 837 (QB)
Bailii
Highways Act 1980
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Ovu v London Underground Ltd (Duty of Care) QBD 13-Oct-2021
Safety of Stairs within Undergrounds Care of duty
The Claimant sued the London Underground company because their relative Mr Ovu died after falling down stairs on a fire escape. It was late at night and he wandered on his own on a cold night, outdoors, onto the stairs. The staircase was in good . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Negligence

Updated: 27 November 2021; Ref: scu.655911

Nyang v G4S Care and Justice Services Ltd and Others: QBD 11 Dec 2013

The claimant suffered very substantial injury. He was detained at an immigration removal centre. He said that he suffered a mental illness, and that through a negligent failure to diagnose and control his condition he ran head first into a wall causing the injuries. He had made threats to kill himself, but no steps had been taken for investigation or care.

Lewis J
[2013] EWHC 3946 (QB)
Bailii

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 26 November 2021; Ref: scu.518922

Harrison and Others v Technical Sign Company Ltd and Others: CA 4 Dec 2013

A sign had fallen from a building injuring passers by. Judgment had been entered in their favour against several defendants who now disputed their respective levels of contributory negligence. The present appellant, who had surveyed the property with the sign denied duty of care to the passers by.

Moore-Bick, Patten, McFarlane LJJ
[2013] EWCA Civ 1569
Bailii
England and Wales

Negligence

Updated: 26 November 2021; Ref: scu.518766

O’Neill and Others v Tomlinson: QBNI 3 Jul 2013

Appeal from the decision of Deputy County Court Judge Gilpin on 25 March 2013 when he awarded andpound;7,500 in respect of general damages to the plaintiffs arising from an escape of oil from the defendants’ property onto the plaintiffs’ property.

[2013] NIQB 97
Bailii

Northern Ireland, Negligence, Nuisance

Updated: 26 November 2021; Ref: scu.518546

PBD and Another v Greater Manchester Police: QBD 18 Nov 2013

The claimant had acted as police informant for the defendant. He said that the defendant had wrongfully released his identity resulting in him having to seek witness relocation with consequential losses for himself and his partner the co-claimant.
Held: The claim failed. The Defendant did not owe the First Claimant a duty of care in respect of his psychiatric loss.

Silber J
[2013] EWHC 3559 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Hertfordshire Police v Van Colle; Smith v Chief Constable of Sussex Police HL 30-Jul-2008
Police Obligations to Witnesses is Limited
A prosecution witness was murdered by the accused shortly before his trial. The parents of the deceased alleged that the failure of the police to protect their son was a breach of article 2.
Held: The House was asked ‘If the police are alerted . .
Cited – Van Colle and Van Colle v The United Kingdom ECHR 9-Feb-2010
Statement of Facts . .
Cited – Van Colle v The United Kingdom ECHR 13-Nov-2012
. .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Negligence

Updated: 26 November 2021; Ref: scu.518028

Billings v Reed: CA 1945

The plaintiff’s wife had been killed by a negligently piloted RAF aeroplane. It was argued that, although this was a war injury, the language of section 3(1) did not exclude a claim based on trespass to the person.
Held: Lord Greene MR said: ‘It seems to me that in this context the phrase ‘breach of duty’ is comprehensive enough to cover the case of trespass to the person which is certainly a breach of duty as used in a wide sense.’

Lord Greene MR, Mackinnon and Lawrence LJJ
[1945] KB 11
Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act 1939
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – A v Hoare; H v Suffolk County Council, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs intervening; X and Y v London Borough of Wandsworth CA 12-Apr-2006
Each claimant sought damages for a criminal assault for which the defendant was said to be responsible. Each claim was to be out of the six year limitation period. In the first claim, the proposed defendant had since won a substantial sum from the . .
Cited – A v Hoare HL 30-Jan-2008
Each of six claimants sought to pursue claims for damages for sexual assaults which would otherwise be time barred under the 1980 Act after six years. They sought to have the House depart from Stubbings and allow a discretion to the court to extend . .
Applied – Letang v Cooper CA 15-Jun-1964
The plaintiff, injured in an accident, pleaded trespass to the person, which was not a breach of duty within the proviso to the section, in order to achieve the advantages of a six-year limitation period.
Held: Trespass is strictly speaking . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Limitation, Negligence

Updated: 25 November 2021; Ref: scu.240375

General Construction Ltd v Chue Wing and Co Ltd and Another: PC 15 Oct 2013

(Mauritius) A high crane had fallen during a storm onto a neighbouring building. The court considered whether under the Mauritian law of faute the accident had occurred through force majeure.

Lord Neuberger, Lord Mance, Lord Clarke, Lord Carnwath, Lord Toulson
[2013] UKPC 30
Bailii

Commonwealth, Negligence

Updated: 21 November 2021; Ref: scu.516493

Streeter v Hughes and Another: QBD 20 Sep 2013

The claimant cyclist sought damages after suffering very serious injuries in a collision with a car driven by the defendant. Other witnesses said that the claimant emerged from a side road into the defendant’s car’s path. Experts said that the distance the claimant had been thrown suggested the car had been driving too fast.
Held: Examinng the evidence, the claimant had emerged in such a way as to preclude the defendant seeing him in time to stop.

Jeremy Baker J
[2013] EWHC 2841 (QB)
Bailii

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 20 November 2021; Ref: scu.515376

John Summers and Sons Ltd v Frost: HL 1955

Construction of Workmen Safety Statutes

The normal rule that penal statutes must be strictly construed has not been allowed to stand in the way of the protection given to the workman by the statutory language. The House considered the requirement under section 14(1) of the 1937 Act that ‘Every dangerous part of any machinery . . shall be securely fenced unless it is in such a position or of such construction as to be as safe to every person employed or working on the premises as it would be if securely fenced’, and had applied to the concept of dangerousness an approach dating back to Hindle v Birtwhistle [1897] 1 QB 192, namely that a machine or part is dangerous ‘if in the ordinary course of human affairs danger may reasonably be anticipated from the use of them without protection’, and that it was ‘impossible to say that because an accident had happened once therefore the machine was dangerous’. Lords Reid and Keith at pp 765-766 and 774 expressly endorsed the relevance of determining whether the degree of danger was such that there was ‘a reasonably foreseeable cause of injury’.
Lord Reid aid that an employer considering the use of dangerous equipment must allow for possible lapses by a workman.
Viscount Simonds said that it was elementary that it is necessary to consider not only the risk run by a skilled and careful man who never relaxes his vigilance.

Viscount Simonds, Lord Reid
[1955] AC 740, [1955] 1 All ER 870
Factories Act 1937 14(1)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Fytche v Wincanton Logistics Plc HL 1-Jul-2004
The claimant was employed as a milk truck driver. He was issued with a pair of boots capped to protect his feet from impact. In a snowstorm, and against company advice, he sough to dig himself out. The boots leaked and he suffered frostbite. He . .
Cited – Robb v Salamis (M and I) Ltd HL 13-Dec-2006
The claimant was injured working for the defendants on a semi-submersible platform. He fell from a ladder which was not secured properly. He alleged a breach of the Regulations. The defendant denied any breach and asserted that the claimant had . .
Cited – Robb v Salamis (M and I) Ltd HL 13-Dec-2006
The claimant was injured working for the defendants on a semi-submersible platform. He fell from a ladder which was not secured properly. He alleged a breach of the Regulations. The defendant denied any breach and asserted that the claimant had . .
Cited – Baker v Quantum Clothing Group Ltd and Others SC 13-Apr-2011
The court was asked as to the liability of employers in the knitting industry for hearing losses suffered by employees before the 1989 Regulations came into effect. The claimant had worked in a factory between 1971 and 2001, sustaining noise induced . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Health and Safety, Negligence

Updated: 19 November 2021; Ref: scu.198670

Brooke v Bool: 1928

Volunteer Was Joint Tortfeasor

A and B set out together to investigate the source of a gas leak which was B’s direct concern alone. A had come with him to help. Because B was too old to carry out a particular task, A carried it out instead. The means of investigation was ill-advised and an explosion took place.
Held: A was plainly liable. The Divisional Court held that B was liable too as a joint tortfeasor engaged in a common venture with A.
Talbot J said: ‘It is obvious that to examine a place in which an escape of gas is suspected is highly dangerous, unless proper care is taken; and that one of the necessary precautions against disaster is to avoid the use of a naked light. In my opinion the defendant, having undertaken this examination, was under a duty to take reasonable care to avoid danger resulting from it to the shop and its contents, and, if so, he cannot escape liability for the consequences of failure to discharge this duty by getting, as he did, some one to make the examination, or part of it, for him, whether that person is an agent, or a servant, or a contractor, or a mere voluntary helper. This is the principle of such cases as Bower v. Peate 1 Q. B. D. 321; Black v. Christchurch Finance Co. [1894] A C 48; Hughes v. Percival 8 App. Cas. 443; Hardaker v. Idle District Council [1896] 1 Q. B. 335; and see the judgment of Lord Blackburn in Dalton v. Angus 6 App Cas 740. The principle is that if a man does work on or near another’s property which involves danger to that property unless proper care is taken, he is liable to the owners of the property for damage resulting to it from the failure to take proper care, and is equally liable if, instead of doing the work himself, he procures another, whether agent, servant or otherwise, to do it for him.’

Talbot J
[1928] 2 KB 578
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – The Koursk CA 1924
The navigators of two ships had committed two separate torts or one tort in which they were both tortfeasors.
Held: Three situations were identified where A might be jointly liable with B for B’s tortious act. Where A was master and B servant; . .

Cited by:
Cited – Unilever Plc v Gillette (UK) Limited CA 1989
Unilever claimed infringement of its patent. The court was asked whether there was a good arguable case against the United States parent company of the existing defendant sufficient to justify the parent company to be joined as a defendant and to . .
Cited – MCA Records Inc and Another v Charly Records Ltd and others (No 5) CA 5-Oct-2001
The court discussed the personal liability of a director for torts committed by his company: ‘i) a director will not be treated as liable with the company as a joint tortfeasor if he does no more than carry out his constitutional role in the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 19 November 2021; Ref: scu.230358

OLL Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport: QBD 22 Jul 1997

Coastguard Not liable in Negligence

Eight children with a teacher and two instructors set off on a canoeing trip but did not return. They got into difficulties at sea. Two became separated from the rest. The canoes capsized and sank. Some tried to swim ashore. Two more members became separated. They were all eventually rescued between 5.30 and 6.40 pm, but four of the children died and the other members of the party suffered severe hypothermia and shock. Proceedings were brought against the organisers of the trip, who sought redress against the Secretary of State as the minister responsible for HM Coastguard. The defendant sought a strike out of the claim.
Held: The claim was struck out. A coastguard owed no duty of care to those in distress even in giving a negligent mis-direction to non-employees. The claimant relied on an internal manual and orders intended and designed to ensure that the coastguard discharged its responsibilities properly, efficiently and effectively. It was said that the coastguard had encouraged an expectation in the minds of the public that they would respond promptly and appropriately to marine emergencies. It had thereby assumed responsibilities to the public for the execution of search and rescue missions in coastal waters.
It was submitted that a duty of care arose from the expectation that the coast guard would act carefully, the expectation being created by ministerial pronouncement, published procedures and a common knowledge that the coast guard would act when it knows of an emergency at sea. These submissions were rejected. They strained what Lord Hoffmann had said in Stovin v Wise beyond breaking point.

May J
Times 22-Jul-1997, [1997] 3 All ER 397
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Stovin v Wise, Norfolk County Council (Third Party) HL 24-Jul-1996
Statutory Duty Does Not Create Common Law Duty
The mere existence of statutory power to remedy a defect cannot of itself create a duty of care to do so. A highway authority need not have a duty of care to highway users because of its duty to maintain the highway. The two stage test ‘involves . .
Cited – Capital and Counties Plc and Another v Hampshire County Council; Etc CA 20-Mar-1997
Three cases were brought against fire services after what were said to be negligent responses to call outs. On one, the fire brigade was called to a fire at office premises in Hampshire. The fire triggered the operation of a heat-activated sprinkler . .

Cited by:
Cited – Chief Constable of Northumbria v Costello CA 3-Dec-1998
A woman police officer was attacked by a prisoner in a cell. She sought damages for the failure of a senior officer nearby not to come to her aid, and from the chief constable under his vicarious liability.
Held: The chief constable’s appeal . .
Cited – Mullaney v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police CA 15-May-2001
The claimant police officer was severely injured making an arrest. He claimed damages from the respondent for contributory negligence of other officers in failing to come to his assistance.
Held: If a police officer owes a duty of care to . .
Cited – Jane Marianne Sandhar, John Stuart Murray v Department of Transport, Environment and the Regions CA 5-Nov-2004
The claimant’s husband died when his car skidded on hoar frost. She claimed the respondent was liable under the Act and at common law for failing to keep it safe.
Held: The respondent had not assumed a general responsibility to all road users . .
Cited – Hertfordshire Police v Van Colle; Smith v Chief Constable of Sussex Police HL 30-Jul-2008
Police Obligations to Witnesses is Limited
A prosecution witness was murdered by the accused shortly before his trial. The parents of the deceased alleged that the failure of the police to protect their son was a breach of article 2.
Held: The House was asked ‘If the police are alerted . .
Cited – Michael and Others v The Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Another SC 28-Jan-2015
The claimants asserted negligence in the defendant in failing to provide an adequate response to an emergency call, leading, they said to the death of their daughter at the hands of her violent partner. They claimed also under the 1998 Act. The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 19 November 2021; Ref: scu.84444

Davies v Swan Motor Co (Swansea) Ltd: CA 1949

A plaintiff brought an action for damages for personal injury against the drivers of two cars.
Held: There are two aspects to apportioning responsibility between a plaintiff and defendant in an action for negligence, the respective causative potency of what they have done, and their respective blameworthiness
Denning LJ said: ‘If they were both found guilty of ‘fault’ which caused the damage, could it possibly be said that the plaintiff’s damages were to be reduced as against one and not as against the other? And even if that were possible, what would be the proportions as between the two drivers? Would contributions be assessed on the higher or lower figure of damages? If the Act of 1945 were to involve such questions, it would introduce many complications into the law. The Act seems to contemplate that, if the plaintiff’s own fault was one of the causes of the accident, his damages are to be reduced by the self-same amount as against any of the others whose fault was a cause of the accident, whether he sues one or more of them, and they bear the amount so reduced in the appropriate proportions as between themselves.’

Denning LJ
[1949] 2 KB 291
Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 1
England and Wales
Cited by:
Approved – Fitzgerald v Lane HL 14-Jul-1988
The plaintiff crossed road at a pelican crossing. The lights were against him but one car had stopped. As he passed that car he was struck by another in the second lane and again by a car coming the other way. The judge had held the three equally . .
Approved – Stapley v Gypsum Mines Ltd HL 25-Jun-1953
Plaintiff to take own responsibility for damage
The question was whether the fault of the deceased’s fellow workman, they both having disobeyed their foreman’s instructions, was to be regarded as having contributed to the accident.
Held: A plaintiff must ‘share in the responsibility for the . .
Approved – Chapman v Hearse, Baker v Willoughby HL 26-Nov-1969
The plaintiff, a pedestrian had been struck by the defendant’s car while crossing the road. The plaintiff had negligently failed to see the defendant’s car approaching. The defendant had a clear view of the plaintiff prior to the collision, but was . .
Cited – Eagle v Chambers CA 24-Jul-2003
The claimant was severely injured when run down by the defendant driving his car. She was in Blackpool, and drunk and wandering in the highway. The defendant was himself at or near the drink driving limit. She appealed against a finding that she was . .
Cited – Jones v Livox Quarries CA 25-Apr-1952
The plaintiff had ridden on the back of a kind of tractor in a quarry and in defiance of his employer’s instructions, risking being thrown off and injured. Another vehicle ran into the back of the first vehicle, injuring the plaintiff. He contended . .
Cited – The Miraflores and The Abadesa PC 1967
Two ships had collided. A third itself ran aground trying to avoid them, and its ownes sought damages.
Held: The unit approach to apportionment of damages was wrong.
Lord Morris said of section 1 of the 1911 Act: ‘The section calls for . .
Cited – O’Connell v Jackson CA 7-Jul-1971
Motorcyclist negligent without helmet
The plaintiff sought damages after an accident. The defendant car driver had negligently moved forward into the path of the plaintiff motor cyclist who was injured. The defendant argued that the plaintiff, a motorcyclist, was contributorily . .
Cited – Swallow Security Services Ltd v Millicent EAT 19-Mar-2009
EAT UNFAIR DISMISSAL: Contributory fault
The employers dismissed the employee after a bogus redundancy exercise, after she had knowingly taken paid holiday in excess of her holiday allowance and failed to . .
Cited – Kotula v EDF Energy Networks (Epn) Plc and Others QBD 15-Jun-2010
kotula_edfQBD2012
The claimant cyclist sought damages for severe personal injury. He was walking or riding his cycle through some roadworks by the roadside, and fell out through roadside barriers into the path of a car. The defendants admitted that the path was less . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Damages, Negligence

Updated: 17 November 2021; Ref: scu.185851

Monarch Steamship Co Ltd v Karlshamns Oljefabriker A/B: HL 1949

Damages were sought for breach of contract.
Held: After reviewing the authorities on remoteness of damage, the court reaffirmed the broad general rule that a party injured by the other’s breach of contract is entitled to such money compensation as will put him in the position in which he would have been but for the breach. The matters did not depend on the differences (if any) between contract and tort in that connection. The reasonable contemplation as to damages was what the court attributed to the parties and the question in such a case must always be what reasonable business men must be taken to have contemplated as the natural or probable result if the contract was broken. The question of whether the damage was foreseeable is a question of fact.
Lord Wright said: ‘Causation is a mental concept, generally based on inference or induction from uniformity of sequence as between two events that there is a causal connection between them . . The common law, however, is not concerned with philosophic speculation, but is only concerned with ordinary everyday life and thoughts and expressions . .’

Lord Wright
[1949] AC 196, [1948] UKHL 1, 65 TLR 217, 1949 SC (HL) 1, [1949] AC 196, 1949 SLT 51, (1948-49) 82 Ll L Rep 137, [1949] LJR 772, [1949] 1 All ER 1
Bailii
Scotland
Cited by:
Cited – Lagden v O’Connor HL 4-Dec-2003
The parties had been involved in a road traffic accident. The defendant drove into the claimant’s parked car. The claimant was unable to afford to hire a car pending repairs being completed, and arranged to hire a car on credit. He now sought . .
Cited – Chester v Afshar HL 14-Oct-2004
The claimant suffered back pain for which she required neurosurgery. The operation was associated with a 1-2% risk of the cauda equina syndrome, of which she was not warned. She went ahead with the surgery, and suffered that complication. The . .
Cited – Transfield Shipping Inc v Mercator Shipping Inc (The Achilleas) HL 9-Jul-2008
The parties contracted to charter the Achileas. The charterer gave notice to terminate the hire, and the owner found a new charterer. Until the termination the charterers sub-chartered. That charter was not completed, delaying the ship for the . .
Cited – County Ltd v Girozentrale Securities CA 1996
The plaintiff bank had agreed to underwrite a share placement. The defendant brokers made representations to potential investors outside and in breach of the terms of the engagement letter. The bank failed to check on the status of indicative . .
Cited – Borealis Ab v Geogas Trading Sa ComC 9-Nov-2010
The parties had contracted for sale and purchase of butane for processing. It was said to have been contaminated. The parties now disputed the effect on damages for breach including on causation, remoteness, mitigation and quantum.
Held: The . .
Cited – Kpohraror v Woolwich Building Society CA 1996
The Society, acting as a bank, had at first failed to pay its customer’s cheque for andpound;4,550, even though there were sufficient funds. The bank said that it had been reported lost. The customer sought damages to his business reputation.
Damages, Negligence, Contract

Updated: 17 November 2021; Ref: scu.188648

Wilson v Tyneside Window Cleaning Co: CA 24 Apr 1958

Pearce LJ said that if an employer sends an employee to work, ‘for instance in a respectable private house’, he could not be held negligent for not visiting the house himself ‘to see if the carpet in the hall created a trap’.

Jenkins, Pearce, Parker LJJ
[1958] EWCA Civ 2, [1958] 2 WLR 900, [1958] 2 QB 110, [1958] 2 All ER 265
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Biddle v Hart 1907
A stevedore’s workman, whilst unloading a ship, was injured owing to a defect in the tackle, and he was suing his master. The learned Judge withdrew the case from the jury, on the ground that the stevedore was not responsible for a defect in the . .

Cited by:
Cited – Woodland v The Swimming Teachers’ Association and Others QBD 17-Oct-2011
The court was asked as to the vicarious or other liability of a school where a pupil suffered injury at a swimming lesson with a non-employee during school time, and in particular whether it had a non-delegable duty to ensure the welfare of children . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Health and Safety, Negligence

Updated: 16 November 2021; Ref: scu.262824

Chappell v Cooper: CA 1980

The plaintiff’s writ had not been served within the required time, and it had become too late to extend its validity. The plaintiff isued a second writ. The defendant argued limitation. Counsel for the plaintiffs sought to distinguish Walkley on the very narrow ground that there was no question of the first action having being struck out or discontinued.
Held: (Roskill LJ) ‘ . . I cannot accept the submission that [Walkley] is a decision only on the facts of that case. It seems to me plainly a decision on principle that if a plaintiff starts but then does not for any reason proceed with an action, whether it is because the plaintiff chooses not to serve or his solicitors fail to serve the writ timeously or because the action is subsequently struck out for want of prosecution, or because for good reason or bad the plaintiff or his solicitors give notice of discontinuance, it is not open to the plaintiff thereafter to seek to take advantage of the provisions of section [33] . . because as their Lordships have laid down (and we are of course bound by their decision) the cause of his prejudice is not the provisions of section [11], that is to say, the existence of the primary limitation period, but is the act or remission of himself or his solicitors in acting or failing to act as he or they have done in relation to their action.’

Roskill LJ, Ormrod LJ
[1980] 1 WLR 958, [1980] 2 All ER 463
England and Wales
Citing:
Discussed – Walkley v Precision Forgings Ltd HL 1979
The plaintiff tried to bring a second action in respect of an industrial injury claim outside the limitation period so as to overcome the likelihood that his first action, although timeous, would be dismissed for want of prosecution.
Held: He . .

Cited by:
Cited – Jacqueline Adam v Rasal Ali CA 21-Feb-2006
The defendant sought damages against the defendant for personal injury from his alleged negligence. Her action was struck out and she recommenced the action. The defendant pleaded that she was out of time. The claimant said that the first action . .
Cited – Horton v Sadler and Another HL 14-Jun-2006
The claimant had been injured in a road traffic accident for which the defendant was responsible in negligence. The defendant was not insured, and so a claim was to be made against the MIB. The plaintiff issued proceedings just before the expiry of . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Limitation, Negligence

Updated: 16 November 2021; Ref: scu.240165

Verderame v Commercial Union Assurance Co Plc: CA 2 Apr 1992

The insurance brokers, acting to arrange insurance for a small private limited company did not owe a duty in tort to the directors of that company personally. Where an action was brought in a tort and in breach of contract, damages could not be awarded on the tort where they were not available in contract.

Balcombe LJ
[1992] BCLC 793, Times 02-Apr-1992
England and Wales
Citing:
Followed – Watts and Co v Morrow CA 30-Jul-1991
The plaintiff had bought a house on the faith of the defendant’s report that there were only limited defects requiring repair. In fact the defects were much more extensive. The defendant surveyor appealed against an award of damages after his . .

Cited by:
Cited – Johnson v Gore Wood and Co (a Firm) CA 12-Nov-1998
The claimant had previously issued a claim against the defendant solicitors through his company. He now sought to pursue a claim in his own name. It was resisted as an abuse of process, and on the basis that no personal duty of care was owed to the . .
Cited – Hamilton Jones v David and Snape (a Firm) ChD 19-Dec-2003
The claimant was represented by the respondent firm of solicitors in an action for custody of her children. Through their negligence the children had been removed from the country. She sought damages for the distress of losing her children.
Agency, Insurance, Company, Contract, Negligence, Damages

Updated: 16 November 2021; Ref: scu.181818

Strable v Dartford Borough Council: CA 1984

A local authority is not liable in damages for a negligent failure properly to complete its planning law duties. No action lay and the remedy available to an individual in such a case is to object on appeal to the Secretary of State and, if still dissatisfied with the planning results of that appeal, to seek judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision. The question is always whether, looking at the whole statute and at all the circumstances, including the history of the legislation, the relevant Act was passed primarily for the benefit of the individual or for the public in general.

Stephenson LJ
[1984] JPL 329
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Lam and Others (T/a ‘Namesakes of Torbay’) and Borough of Torbay CA 30-Jul-1997
The claimant sought damages after the planning authority allowed the first defendant to conduct a manufacturing business in the course of which spraying activities took place which caused them personal injuries and loss of business.
Held: The . .
Cited – Kane v New Forest District Council CA 13-Jun-2001
A pedestrian walked from a footpath into the road and was hit by a car. She sought damages from the highway authority, saying that they had allowed vegetation to grow to an extent to make it impossible to be seen. As a second tier appeal, the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Planning, Negligence

Updated: 16 November 2021; Ref: scu.225320

Marshall v Osmond: CA 1983

The plaintiff was passenger in a stolen car seeking to escape the police as they chased. The car was stopped, the plaintiff got out of the car, and was hit by a police car. He sought damages.
Held: His appeal against dismissal of his claim was dismissed. A police officer was to exercise such care and skill as was reasonable in the circumstances. Though the officer might have made errors of judgment, he had not in fact been negligent. Though the claimant had helped to create the circumstances which gave rise to the accident, the defence of volenti non fit injuria did not apply.
Sir John Donaldson MR said: ‘I think that the duty owed by a police driver to the suspect is, as Mr Spokes, on behalf of the plaintiff, has contended, the same duty as that owed to anyone else, namely to exercise such care and skill as is reasonable in all the circumstances. The vital words in that proposition of law are ‘in all the circumstances’, and of course one of the circumstances was that the plaintiff bore all the appearance of having been somebody engaged in a criminal activity for which there was a power of arrest.’
and ‘As I see it, what happened was that this police officer pursued a line in steering his car which would, in the ordinary course of events, have led to his ending up sufficiently far away from the Cortina to clear its open door. He was driving on a gravelly surface at night in what were no doubt stressful circumstances. There is no doubt that he made an error of judgment because, in the absence of an error of judgment, there would have been no contact between the cars. I am far from satisfied on the evidence that the police officer was negligent.’

Sir John Donaldson MR, Dillon LJ, Sir Denis Buckley
[1983] 2 All ER 367, [1983] 1 QB 1034, [1983] 3 WLR 13
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Ashton v Turner QBD 1981
The plaintiff sought damages after being injured as a passenger in a car. He and the driver had both just been involved in a burglary, and the driver, who had taken alcohol was attempting to escape. The driver was driving very dangerously in order . .

Cited by:
Cited – Keyse v Commissioner of the Police for the Metropolis, Scutts CA 18-May-2001
The court considered liability where a police car on emergency duty hit Mr Scutts causing very serious injuries. The officer appealed against a finding of liability saying that the judge had declared irrelevant the fact he was on an emergency . .
Applied – Henry v Thames Valley Police CA 14-Jan-2010
The claimant appealed against rejection of his claim for damages after he had been injured when a police car following him ran over his leg. He had been riding a motorcycle and apparently seeking to escape them. He had stopped and was talking to one . .
Cited – Macleod (By His Deputy and Litigation Friend, Macleod) v Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis QBD 3-Apr-2014
macleod_cpmQBD0414
The claimant sought damages after being severely injured when knocked from his cycle by police officers in a car attending an emergency, and driving over the speed limit.
Held: The claim succeeded, and there had been no contributory negligence . .
Cited – Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police SC 8-Feb-2018
Limits to Police Exemption from Liability
The claimant, an elderly lady was bowled over and injured when police were chasing a suspect through the streets. As they arrested him they fell over on top of her. She appealed against refusal of her claim in negligence.
Held: Her appeal . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Negligence, Road Traffic

Updated: 15 November 2021; Ref: scu.190025

Birch v Ministry of Defence: CA 14 Jun 2013

The claimant appealed against rejection of his claim for personal injuries. He had been driving a Land Rver whilst on active duty in Afghanistan. He said that he was known not to be properly qualified to drive.
Held: The appeal was allowed. Once it was known to the defendants that the claimant was to be selected to drive though unqualified, they were in breach of their duty of care to him, and the court would not make any deduction for contributory negligene.

Longmore, Tomlinson, Lewisn LJJ
[2013] EWCA Civ 676
Bailii
Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 1(1)
England and Wales

Personal Injury, Negligence

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.510862

Swinney and Another v Chief Constable of Northumbria: CA 22 Mar 1996

The plaintiff, a woman and her husband, had passed on information in confidence to the police about the identity of a person implicated in the killing of a police officer, expressing her concern that she did not want the source of the information to be traced back to her. The information was recorded, naming the plaintiff, in a document which was left in an unattended police vehicle, which was broken into and the document was stolen, came into the possession of the person implicated. The plaintiff was threatened with violence and arson and suffered psychiatric damage. The plaintiff’s claim in negligence against the police was struck out, but re-instated.
Held: Police may exceptionally be liable in negligence in criminal investigations. There is a special relationship between the plaintiffs and the defendant, which is sufficiently proximate. Proximity is shown by the police assuming responsibility, and the plaintiffs relying upon that assumption of responsibility, for preserving the confidentiality of the information which, if it fell into the wrong hands, was likely to expose the first plaintiff and members of her family to a special risk of damage from the criminal acts of others, greater than the general risk which ordinary members of the public must endure with phlegmatic fortitude.
Peter Gibson LJ said: ‘the Court must evaluate all the public policy considerations that may apply.’ and the position of a police informer required special consideration from the viewpoint of public policy.
Hirst LJ said:’As Laws J. pointed out in his judgment, there are here other considerations of public policy which also have weight, namely, the need to preserve the springs of information, to protect informers, and to encourage them to come forward without an undue fear of the risk that their identity will subsequently become known to the suspect or to his associates. In my judgment, public policy in this field must be assessed in the round, which in this case means assessing the applicable considerations advanced in the Hill case [1989] A.C 53, which are, of course, of great importance, together with the considerations just mentioned in relation to informers, in order to reach a fair and just decision on public policy.’
Ward LJ said: ‘it is incontrovertible that the fight against crime is daily dependent upon information fed to the police by members of the public, often at real risk of villainous retribution from the criminals and their associates. The public interest will not accept that good citizens should be expected to entrust information to the police, without also expecting that they are entrusting their safety to the police. The public interest would be affronted were it to be the law that members of the public should be expected, in the execution of public service, to undertake the risk of harm to themselves without the police, in return, being expected to take no more than reasonable care to ensure that the confidential information imparted to them is protected. The welfare of the community at large demands the encouragement of the free flow of information without inhibition. Accordingly, it is arguable that there is a duty of care, and that no consideration of public policy precludes the prosecution of the plaintiffs’ claim, which will be judged on its merits later.’

Lord Justice Hirst, Lord Justice Ward
Times 28-Mar-1996, [1997] QBD 464, [1996] EWCA Civ 1322, [1996] 3 WLR 968, [1996] 3 All ER 449, [1996] PNLR 473
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire HL 28-Apr-1987
No General ty of Care Owed by Police
The mother of a victim of the Yorkshire Ripper claimed in negligence against the police alleging that they had failed to satisfy their duty to exercise all reasonable care and skill to apprehend the perpetrator of the murders and to protect members . .

Cited by:
Cited – Osman v The United Kingdom ECHR 28-Oct-1998
Police’s Complete Immunity was Too Wide
(Grand Chamber) A male teacher developed an obsession with a male pupil. He changed his name by deed poll to the pupil’s surname. He was required to teach at another school. The pupil’s family’s property was subjected to numerous acts of vandalism, . .
Cited – Mullaney v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police CA 15-May-2001
The claimant police officer was severely injured making an arrest. He claimed damages from the respondent for contributory negligence of other officers in failing to come to his assistance.
Held: If a police officer owes a duty of care to . .
See Also – Swinney and another v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police (No 2) QBD 25-May-1999
A police informant was owed a duty of confidentiality by the police. His information brought him into a special relationship with the police, and they could be liable in damages for failing to take reasonable steps to protect that confidence. . .
Cited – Van Colle v Hertfordshire Police QBD 10-Mar-2006
The claimants claimed for the estate of their murdered son. He had been waiting to give evidence in a criminal trial, and had asked the police for support having received threats. Other witnesses had also suffered intimidation including acts of . .
Cited – B and B v A County Council CA 21-Nov-2006
The claimants sought damages from the defendant local authority after their identities had been wrongfully revealed to the natural parents of the adoptees leading to a claimed campaign of harassment. The adopters has specifically requested that . .
Cited – Welton, Welton v North Cornwall District Council CA 17-Jul-1996
The defendant authority appealed a finding that it was liable in negligence from the conduct of one of its environmental health officers. The plaintiff had set out to refurbish and open a restaurant. He said the officer gave him a list of things he . .
Cited – An Informer v A Chief Constable CA 29-Feb-2012
The claimant appealed against dismissal of his claim for damages against the police. He had provided them with information, but he said that they had acted negligently and in breach of contract causing him financial loss. The officer handling his . .
Cited – AXN v The Queen CACD 27-May-2016
The defendant argued that greater note should have been taken on his sentencing to allow for the assistance he had given to the police after his arrest.
Held: The current accepted practice is that the text of the letter from the police to the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Negligence, Litigation Practice

Leading Case

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.89660

Capital and Counties Plc and Another v Hampshire County Council; Etc: CA 20 Mar 1997

Three cases were brought against fire services after what were said to be negligent responses to call outs. On one, the fire brigade was called to a fire at office premises in Hampshire. The fire triggered the operation of a heat-activated sprinkler system, but on arrival a fire brigade officer gave instructions for the sprinkler system to be shut down. This led to the fire rapidly spreading out of control and the premises were destroyed. If the sprinkler system had been left on and the fire brigade had otherwise acted as it did to combat the fire, the premises would not have been destroyed. On another, the fire brigade was called to the scene of some fires on waste land near to the claimants’ industrial premises in London. When the fire brigade arrived the fires had already been extinguished. After checking that there was no evidence of any continuing danger the fire brigade left. Later a fire broke out at the claimants’ premises. In the last case, the fire brigade was called to a fire at a chapel in Yorkshire. The water hydrants near the premises either failed to work or the officers were unable for a long time to locate them, and so water had to be fetched from a dam half a mile away. It should have been possible to contain the fire, but as a result of the water shortage the whole building was destroyed.
Held: The court upheld the claim against Hampshire, but dismissed the other two.
Under the 1947 Act, the fire authorities had a stautory duty to secure the services for their area of a fire brigade and equipment, such as necessary to meet efficiently all normal requirements, and to take all reasonable measures to ensure that an adequate supply of water was available for use in case of fire.
The fire brigade may be liable in negligence for consequences of a fire if their actions made a fire worse despite the general rule against such liability. ‘In our judgment the fire brigade are not under a common law duty to answer the call for help, and are not under a duty to take care to do so. If, therefore, they fail to turn up, or fail to turn up in time, because they have carelessly misunderstood the message, got lost on the way or run into a tree, they are not liable.’

Stuart Smith LJ
Times 20-Mar-1997, [1997] QB 1004, [1997] 3 WLR 342
Fire Services Act 1947
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Capital and Counties Plc and Another v Hampshire County Council QBD 26-Apr-1996
The Fire Brigade was negligent in turning off a sprinkler system in a burning building. . .
Applied – Stovin v Wise, Norfolk County Council (Third Party) HL 24-Jul-1996
Statutory Duty Does Not Create Common Law Duty
The mere existence of statutory power to remedy a defect cannot of itself create a duty of care to do so. A highway authority need not have a duty of care to highway users because of its duty to maintain the highway. The two stage test ‘involves . .
See Also – Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints v West Yorkshire Fire and Civil Defence and John Munroe (Acrylics) Ltd v London Fire and Civil Defence Authority and others and Digital Equipment Company Ltd v Hampshire County Council and Capital and Counties etc CA 17-Dec-1996
The court made orders for the orderly hearing of the cases which raised interdependent issues. . .
Cited – Geddis v Proprietors of Bann Reservoir HL 18-Feb-1878
The owner of land injured by operations authorised by statute ‘suffers a private loss for the public benefit’, and in the absence of clear statutory authority is unable to claim: ‘It is now thoroughly well established that no action will lie for . .
Cited – East Suffolk Rivers Catchment Board v Kent HL 1941
An exceptionally high spring tide caused many breaches of the banks of the River Deben, and extensive flooding, including the respondent’s farm. By section 6 of the 1930 Act, the appellants had a statutory power to maintain the flood defences, but . .

Cited by:
Cited – Mullaney v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police CA 15-May-2001
The claimant police officer was severely injured making an arrest. He claimed damages from the respondent for contributory negligence of other officers in failing to come to his assistance.
Held: If a police officer owes a duty of care to . .
Cited – Chief Constable of Northumbria v Costello CA 3-Dec-1998
A woman police officer was attacked by a prisoner in a cell. She sought damages for the failure of a senior officer nearby not to come to her aid, and from the chief constable under his vicarious liability.
Held: The chief constable’s appeal . .
Cited – Gorringe v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council HL 1-Apr-2004
Statutory Duty Not Extended by Common Law
The claimant sought damages after a road accident. The driver came over the crest of a hill and hit a bus. The road was not marked with any warning as to the need to slow down.
Held: The claim failed. The duty could not be extended to include . .
Cited – Jane Marianne Sandhar, John Stuart Murray v Department of Transport, Environment and the Regions CA 5-Nov-2004
The claimant’s husband died when his car skidded on hoar frost. She claimed the respondent was liable under the Act and at common law for failing to keep it safe.
Held: The respondent had not assumed a general responsibility to all road users . .
See Also – Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints v West Yorkshire Fire and Civil Defence and John Munroe (Acrylics) Ltd v London Fire and Civil Defence Authority and others and Digital Equipment Company Ltd v Hampshire County Council and Capital and Counties etc CA 17-Dec-1996
The court made orders for the orderly hearing of the cases which raised interdependent issues. . .
Cited – OLL Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport QBD 22-Jul-1997
Coastguard Not liable in Negligence
Eight children with a teacher and two instructors set off on a canoeing trip but did not return. They got into difficulties at sea. Two became separated from the rest. The canoes capsized and sank. Some tried to swim ashore. Two more members became . .
Cited – Kent v Doctor Griffiths, Doctor Roberts, The London Ambulance Service QBD 16-Jul-1999
The claimant suffered a respiratory arrest after an emergency ambulance called by the first defendant, did not arrive for 40 minutes.
Held: the ambulance service was negligenct and liable. The acceptance of the doctor’s request for an . .
Not followed – Burnett v Grampian Fire and Rescue Service SCS 9-Jan-2007
SCS At this debate on a preliminary plea the court was asked to decide if Grampian Fire and Rescue Service owed a duty of reasonable care to Mr Burnett when fighting a fire which caused to his property. Mr . .
Cited – Michael and Others v The Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Another SC 28-Jan-2015
The claimants asserted negligence in the defendant in failing to provide an adequate response to an emergency call, leading, they said to the death of their daughter at the hands of her violent partner. They claimed also under the 1998 Act. The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Local Government

Leading Case

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.78881

Capps v Miller: CA 30 Nov 1988

The plaintiff was injured riding with the defendant on a motor-cycle. The defendant drove negligently, and crashed. The plaintiff’s crash hemet came off and he sustained severe head injuries. He had not fastened it. The defendant appealed an apportionment of 100% responsibility to himself.
Held: The judge was wrong. The plaintiff’s own contributory negligence had clearly contributed to the seriousness of the injury. His damages were reduced by 10%. It was not possible to make a finding on the medical evidence as to the extent to which the plaintiff’s injuries were worse because his undone helmet came off thus it was not possible readily to attribute the case to Lord Denning’s categories in Froom v Butcher.
Glidewell LJ drew a distinction between the plaintiff who puts on a crash helmet and fails to fasten it and the plaintiff who fails to wear a helmet at all, since a close fitting but unfastened helmet will in some accidents remain on the head, thus reducing or eliminating the damage resulting.

May, Croom-Johnson, Glidewell LJ
[1989] 2 All ER 333, [1988] EWCA Civ 5, [1989] 1 WLR 839
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Distinguished – O’Connell v Jackson CA 7-Jul-1971
Motorcyclist negligent without helmet
The plaintiff sought damages after an accident. The defendant car driver had negligently moved forward into the path of the plaintiff motor cyclist who was injured. The defendant argued that the plaintiff, a motorcyclist, was contributorily . .
Considered – Froom v Butcher CA 21-Jul-1975
The court asked what reduction if any should be made to a plaintiff’s damages where injuries were caused not only by the defendant’s negligent driving but also by the failure of the plaintiff to wear a seat belt. It had been submitted that, since . .

Cited by:
Cited – Williams v Williams (The Estate of) CA 30-Apr-2013
A child aged three had been injured as a passenger in her mother’s car when it was hit by another negligently driven vehicle. The mother appealed against a finding that she was 25% contributorily negligent in that the child seat used had been . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.188805

Ashley and Another v Sussex Police (2): QBD 19 Dec 2008

Eady J
[2008] EWHC 3151 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Ashley and Another v Sussex Police CA 27-Jul-2006
The deceased was shot by police officers raiding his flat in 1998. The claimants sought damages for his estate. They had succeeded in claiming damages for false imprisonment, but now appealed dismissal of their claim for damages for assault and . .

Cited by:
See Also – Ashley and Another v Sussex Police (1) QBD 19-Dec-2008
The court considered the terms under which copies of the Moonstone report could be redacted and disclosed. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Torts – Other

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.279944

Ashton v Turner: QBD 1981

The plaintiff sought damages after being injured as a passenger in a car. He and the driver had both just been involved in a burglary, and the driver, who had taken alcohol was attempting to escape. The driver was driving very dangerously in order to avoid their arrest after two taxi drivers had tried to block the car.
Held: The claim failed. As a matter of public policy the law would not recognise a duty of care owed by one participant in a crime to another: ‘a duty of care did not exist between the first defendant and the plaintiff during the course of the burglary and during the course of the subsequent flight in the get-away car.’
He held in the alternative that, even if a duty of care was owed, the Claimant had willingly accepted as his the risk of negligence and injury resulting from it.

Ewbank J
[1981] QB 137, [1980] 3 All ER 870
Road Traffic Act 1972 148(3)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Marshall v Osmond CA 1983
The plaintiff was passenger in a stolen car seeking to escape the police as they chased. The car was stopped, the plaintiff got out of the car, and was hit by a police car. He sought damages.
Held: His appeal against dismissal of his claim was . .
Distinguished – Kirkham v Anderton, The Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester police CA 20-Dec-1989
The claimant’s husband hanged himself in Risley Remand Centre after the police had failed to warn the prison authorities that he was (as the police knew) a suicide risk. He was suffering from clinical depression and had previously attempted suicide . .
Dictum Disapproved – Pitts v The Personal Representatives of Mark James Hunt (Deceased) and Another CA 1990
The plaintiff and a friend had spent the evening drinking at a disco before setting off on the friend’s motorcycle. The plaintiff was aware that the motorcyclist was neither licensed to ride a motorcycle nor insured. During the journey, the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Road Traffic, Negligence

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.188781

Robbins v London Borough of Bexley: CA 17 Oct 2013

The claimant said that his house had been damaged by tree roots for which the appellant was responsible. The trees were 33 metres from the house.
Held: The appeal failed. The immediate cause of the damage was a failure to do something which the council had not been obliged to do. This was a Bolitho type case, and the judge was to ask what would have happened if the Council had done something rather than nothing. However: ‘the judge was justified on the facts, and as a matter of the proper application of the rules of causation, in asking what the Council would in fact have done, had it taken reasonable steps to prevent the damage. The Council’s error is in assuming that the judge found the content of its duty was simply to undertake a particular 25% cyclical pruning regime, and that its breach was its failure to undertake such a regime. That is not, in my judgment, how the judge’s judgment is properly to be understood.’ The judge was perfectly justified in inferring that, if the canopy reduction works had taken place from 1998 onwards, they would, on a balance of probability, have been undertaken more severely than the later works orders envisaged.

Moore-Bick, Aikens, Vos LJJ
[2013] EWHC 1233 (Civ)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Leakey v The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty CA 31-Jul-1979
Natural causes were responsible for soil collapsing onto neighbouring houses in Bridgwater.
Held: An occupier of land owes a general duty of care to a neighbouring occupier in relation to a hazard occurring on his land, whether such hazard is . .
Cited – Solloway v Hampshire County Council CA 1981
Tree root damage had occurred following two successive very hot and dry summers in 1975 and 1976, in an area where the subsoil was almost all gravel but where, as it happened, under the plaintiff’s house there were pockets of clay. An issue arose as . .
Cited – Bolitho v City and Hackney Health Authority HL 24-Jul-1997
The plaintiff suffered catastrophic brain damage as a result of cardiac arrest induced by respiratory failure as a child whilst at the defendant hospital. A doctor was summoned but failed to attend, and the child suffered cardiac arrest and brain . .
Cited – Delaware Mansions Limited and others v Lord Mayor and Citizens of the City of Westminster HL 25-Oct-2001
The landowner claimed damages for works necessary to remediate damage to his land after encroachment of tree roots onto his property.
Held: The issue had not been properly settled in English law. The problem was to be resolved by applying a . .
Cited – Joyce v Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Health Authority CA 1996
Hobhouse LJ said: ‘Thus, a plaintiff can discharge the burden of proof on causation by satisfying the court either that the relevant person would in fact have taken the requisite action (although she would not have been at fault if she had not) or . .
Cited – Beary v Pall Mall Investments (A Firm) CA 19-Apr-2005
The independent financial advisor defendant had negligently failed to advise the claimant client about the possibility of taking out an annuity. However, the claimant would not have done so, unless he had been positively advised that he should. The . .
Appeal from – Robbins v London Borough of Bexley TCC 16-Aug-2012
The claimant sought damages saying that her house had been damaged by subsidence after dessication of the soil by trees under the defendant’s control.
Held: The defendants were liable. . .
Cited – Berent v Family Mosaic Housing and Another CA 13-Jul-2012
The claimant sought damages saying that her house had been damaged by the roots of plane trees on neighbouring land for which the defendants were responsible. . .
Cited – Phethean-Hubble v Coles CA 21-Mar-2012
The claimant cyclist suffered serious injury in a collision with a car driven by the defendant. The defendant appealed against a finding that he was two thirds responsible. The case for the injured cyclist was that the motorist was going too fast. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Nuisance, Damages, Negligence

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.516539

Simmons v British Steel plc: HL 29 Apr 2004

The claimant was injured at work as a consequence of the defender’s negligence. His injuries became more severe, and he came to suffer a disabling depression.
Held: the Inner House had been wrong to characterise the Outer House decision as incorrect. Since the pursuer suffered physical injuries the starting point is that he was a primary victim. ‘Mr Smith argued, however, that the pursuer’s psoriasis and his depressive illness sprang not from the accident itself, but from his anger at the happening of the accident. Hence he could not recover damages. I see no reason to give effect to such a distinction, even supposing that it can be realistically drawn in a given case. Regret, fear for the future, frustration at the slow pace of recovery and anger are all emotions that are likely to arise, unbidden, in the minds of those who suffer injuries in an accident such as befell the pursuer. If, alone or in combination with other factors, any of these emotions results in stress so intense that the victim develops a recognised mental illness, there is no reason in principle why he should not recover damages for that illness.’
Once liability is established, remoteness of damage is to be approached as follows: (1) a defender is not liable for a consequence of a kind which is not reasonably foreseeable; While a defender is not liable for damage that was not reasonably foreseeable, it does not follow that he is liable for all damage that was reasonably foreseeable: depending on the circumstances, the defender may not be liable for damage caused by a novus actus interveniens or unreasonable conduct on the part of the pursuer, even if it was reasonably foreseeable; Subject to (2), if the pursuer’s injury is of a kind that was foreseeable, the defender is liable, even if the damage is greater in extent than was foreseeable or it was caused in a way that could not have been foreseen; (4) The defender must take his victim as he finds him; (5) Subject to (2), where personal injury to the pursuer was reasonably foreseeable, the defender is liable for any personal injury, whether physical or psychiatric, which the pursuer suffers as a result of his wrongdoing.’

Lord Steyn, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Baroness Hale of Richmond
[2004] UKHL 20, Times 04-May-2004, [2004] ICR 585, 2004 GWD 14-315, [2004] PIQR P33, 2004 SLT 595
House of Lords, Bailii
Scotland
Citing:
Cited – Graham v David A Hall Ltd 1996
The pursuer’s symptoms, other than some initial bruising to her back resulting from her fall, were caused not by the accident but by the defenders’ treatment of her afterwards including their refusal to acknowledge liability for it and to give her . .
Appeal from – Christopher Simmons v British Steel Plc IHCS 29-Oct-2002
The pursuer was injured in his head at work. That injury made worse a pre-existing skin condition, which in trun led to severe depression. He appealed a finding that the damage was too remote.
Held: The House was in a position itself to judge . .
Cited – Allan v Barclay IHCS 1864
Lord Kinloch said: ‘The grand rule on the subject of damages is, that none can be claimed except such as naturally and directly arise out of the wrong done; and such, therefore, as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the view of the . .
Cited – Clarke v Edinburgh and District Tramways Co HL 1919
The House considered the ability of an appellate court to reconsider the facts.
Held: The privileges enjoyed by a trial judge extend not only to questions of credibility.
Lord Shaw said that the judge enjoys ‘those advantages, sometimes . .
Cited – Watt (or Thomas) v Thomas HL 1947
When Scots Appellate Court may set decision aside
The House considered when it was appropriate for an appellate court in Scotland to set aside the judgment at first instance.
Lord Thankerton said: ‘(1) Where a question of fact has been tried by a judge without a jury, and there is no question . .
Cited – Reavis v Clan Line Steamers Ltd 1925
The pursuer was travelling as a passenger on a vessel which sank after colliding with another vessel while on passage from Glasgow to Dublin. It was common ground that she was entitled to damages for the personal injuries which she sustained and any . .
Cited – Glasgow Corporation v Muir HL 16-Apr-1943
The House considered the proper test to define the standard of care that must be adopted by the reasonable man in a claim for negligence.
Held: Lord Clauson said that the test is whether the person owing the duty of care ‘had in contemplation . .
Cited – Glasgow Corporation v Muir HL 16-Apr-1943
The House considered the proper test to define the standard of care that must be adopted by the reasonable man in a claim for negligence.
Held: Lord Clauson said that the test is whether the person owing the duty of care ‘had in contemplation . .
Cited – Steel v Glasgow Iron and Steel Co Ltd 1944
The question was whether the actions of the deceased had broken the chain of causation when he intervened in an attempt to save property. ‘This rule of the ‘reasonable and probable consequence’ is a key that opens several locks; for it not only . .
Cited – Bourhill v Young’s Executor HL 5-Aug-1942
When considering claims for damages for shock, the court only recognised the action lying where the injury by shock was sustained ‘through the medium of the eye or the ear without direct contact.’ Wright L said: ‘No doubt, it has long ago been . .
Cited – Cameron v Hamilton’s Auction Marts Ltd 1955
The court considered the extent of liability for negligent acts: ‘No Scots judge, so far as I know, has ever suggested liability for a consequence of negligence which was not natural and probable in the sense of being foreseeable, subject, of . .
Cited – McKillen v Barclay Curle and Co Ltd 1967
The Lord Ordinary had awarded the pursuer damages for tuberculosis, on the basis that in the accident he had fractured a rib and this had reactivated his pre-existing tuberculosis.
Held: The pursuer had failed to prove the causal connexion . .
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 – Bonnington Castings Ltd v Wardlaw HL 1-Mar-1956
The injury of which the employee complained came from two sources, a pneumatic hammer, in respect of which the employers were not in breach of the relevant Regulations; and swing grinders, in respect of which they were in breach.
Held: It had . .
Cited – Page v Smith HL 12-May-1995
The plaintiff was driving his car when the defendant turned into his path. Both cars suffered considerable damage but the drivers escaped physical injury. The Plaintiff had a pre-existing chronic fatigue syndrome, which manifested itself from time . .
Cited – Fraser v The State Hospitals Board for Scotland OHCS 11-Jul-2000
An employer has a duty to take reasonable care to avoid for his employees unnecessary risk of injury including psychiatric and not merely physical injury, but that duty does not extend to a duty to avoid an employee experiencing unpleasant emotions . .
Cited – McGhee v National Coal Board HL 1973
The claimant who was used to emptying pipe kilns at a brickworks was sent to empty brick kilns where the working conditions were much hotter and dustier. His employers failed, in breach of their duty, to provide him with washing facilities after his . .
Cited – Dulieu v White and Sons KBD 1901
A pregnant barmaid suffered nervous shock causing her to give premature birth as a result of the tortfeasor’s horse van bursting into her bar at the Bonner Arms in Bethnal Green from the roadway. The defendant pleaded that the damages claimed were . .
Cited – Dulieu v White and Sons KBD 1901
A pregnant barmaid suffered nervous shock causing her to give premature birth as a result of the tortfeasor’s horse van bursting into her bar at the Bonner Arms in Bethnal Green from the roadway. The defendant pleaded that the damages claimed were . .
Cited – Campbell v North Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Power Plc SCS 30-Jun-1999
. .
Cited – Campbell v North Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Power Plc SCS 30-Jun-1999
. .
Cited – Cowan v National Coal Board 1958
An employee of the defenders suffered an injury to his eye in the course of his employment. He became nervous and depressed and committed suicide about four months after the accident. His widow and children sought damages from the National Coal . .
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 – Smith v Leech Brain and Co Ltd CA 1962
The reasoning in The Wagon Mound did not affect the rule that a tortfeasor takes his victim as he finds him.
Lord Parker CJ said: ‘The test is not whether these employers could reasonably have foreseen that a burn would cause cancer and that . .
Cited – M’Kew v Holland and Hannen and Cubitts (Scotland) Ltd 1969
. .
Cited – Weld-Blundell v Stephens HL 1920
A physical cause may be irrelevant as a matter of law. The law is concerned not with causation, but with responsibility. Lord Sumner said: ‘more than half of human kind are tale-bearers by nature’.
Where a legal wrong was committed without loss . .

Cited by:
Appealed to – Christopher Simmons v British Steel Plc IHCS 29-Oct-2002
The pursuer was injured in his head at work. That injury made worse a pre-existing skin condition, which in trun led to severe depression. He appealed a finding that the damage was too remote.
Held: The House was in a position itself to judge . .
Cited – Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd CA 31-Mar-2006
The deceased had suffered a head injury whilst working for the defendant. In addition to severe physical consequences he suffered post-traumatic stress, became more and more depressed, and then committed suicide six years later. The claimant . .
Cited – Johnston v NEI International Combustion Ltd; Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Co Ltd; similar HL 17-Oct-2007
The claimant sought damages for the development of neural plaques, having been exposed to asbestos while working for the defendant. The presence of such plaques were symptomless, and would not themselves cause other asbestos related disease, but . .
Cited – Pierce v Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council QBD 13-Dec-2007
The claimant sought damages, saying that the local authority had failed to protect him when he was a child against abuse by his parents.
Held: The claimant had been known to the authority since he was a young child, and they owed him a duty of . .
Cited – Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd HL 27-Feb-2008
The claimant’s husband had committed suicide. She sought damages for financial loss from his former employers under the 1976 Act. He had suffered a severe and debilitating injury working for them leading to his depression and suicide. The employers . .
Cited – Spencer v Wincanton Holdings Ltd (Wincanton Logistics Ltd) CA 21-Dec-2009
The claimant suffered injury for which he sought compensation from his employers. He later had to have his leg amputated as a consequence, but then through his own inadvertence suffered further injury to his other leg and a complete loss of . .
Cited – Chubb Fire Ltd v The Vicar of Spalding and Churchwardens and Church Council of The Church of St Mary and St Nicholas, Spalding CA 20-Aug-2010
The appellants had supplied a dry powder extinguisher to the church. Vandals discharged the extinguisher, requiring substantial sums to be spent cleaning the dust. The church’s insurers sought to recover the costs saying that the appellant should . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Negligence

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.196077

Bonnington Castings Ltd v Wardlaw: HL 1 Mar 1956

The injury of which the employee complained came from two sources, a pneumatic hammer, in respect of which the employers were not in breach of the relevant Regulations; and swing grinders, in respect of which they were in breach.
Held: It had been wrong to formulate the question in terms of which was the most probable source of the disease complained of. The employee had to prove that the dust from the grinders made a substantial contribution to his injury, but that was established by showing that the proportion of dust that came from the swing grinders was not negligible. Where a breach of a duty of care is proved or admitted, the burden still lies on the plaintiff to prove that such breach caused the injury suffered. The test is the ‘but for’ test – what would have happened but for the negligent act.
Lord Reid said: ‘It appears to me that the source of his disease was the dust from both sources, and the real question is whether the dust from the swing grinders materially contributed to the disease. What is a material contribution must be a question of degree. A contribution which comes within the exception de minimis non curat lex is not material, but I think that any contribution which does not fall within that exception must be material. I do not see how there can be something too large to come within the de minimis principle but yet too small to be material.’ and ‘[the plaintiff] must make it appear at least that on a balance of probabilities the breach of duty caused or materially contributed to his injury’.
Lord Tucker said of the duty identified in Vyner: ‘I think it is desirable that your Lordships should take this opportunity to state in plain terms that no such onus exists unless the statute or statutory regulation expressly or impliedly so provides, as in several instances it does. No distinction can be drawn between actions for common law negligence and actions for breach of statutory duty in this respect. In both the plaintiff or pursuer must prove (a) breach of duty and (b) that such breach caused the injury complained of.’

Viscount Simonds, Lord Reid, Lord Tucker, Lord Keith of Avonholm, Lord Somervell of Harrow
[1956] 1 All ER 615 HL(Sc), [1956] 2 WLR 707, [1956] AC 613, 1956 SC (HL) 26, [1956] UKHL 1
Bailii
Grinding of Metals (Miscellaneous Industries) Regulations 1925 1
Scotland
Citing:
Criticised – Vyner v Waldenberg Brothers Ltd CA 1946
Vyner was working a circular saw when part of his thumb was cut off. The saw failed in several respects to comply with the Woodworking Machinery Regulations, and in particular the guard was not properly adjusted. The accident happened before the . .
Cited – Lee v Nursery Furnishings Ltd CA 1945
A Court should not be astute to find against either party, but should apply the ordinary standards. Lord Goddard said: ‘In the first place I think one may say this, that where you find there has been a breach of one of these safety regulations and . .
Cited – Mist v Toleman and Sons CA 1946
. .
Cited – Watts v Enfield Rolling Mills (Aluminium) Ltd CA 1952
. .
Approved – Stimpson v Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd CA 1940
. .
Approved – Caswell v Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries HL 1939
An action was brought for injuries caused by a breach of statutory of duty.
Held: A breach of statutory duty is regarded as ‘akin to negligence’.
Lord Atkin said that a common sense rather than a philosophical or scientific approach to . .

Cited by:
Cited – Vernon v Bosley (2) CA 29-Mar-1996
The defendant had been driving the plaintiff’s daughters, but negligently caused an accident from which they died. The plaintiff was called to the accident, and claimed to have suffered post traumatic stress. The defendant said that the effect was . .
Cited – Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority CA 1986
A prematurely-born baby was the subject of certain medical procedures, in the course of which a breach of duty occurred. to ensure that the correct amount was administered it was necessary to insert a catheter into an umbilical artery so that his . .
Cited – Bolitho v City and Hackney Health Authority HL 24-Jul-1997
The plaintiff suffered catastrophic brain damage as a result of cardiac arrest induced by respiratory failure as a child whilst at the defendant hospital. A doctor was summoned but failed to attend, and the child suffered cardiac arrest and brain . .
Cited – Loftus-Brigham and Another v London Borough of Ealing CA 28-Oct-2003
The claimants sought to recover for damages caused to their house foundations by trees growing nearby which were the responsibility of the defendants. The defendants replied that the damages was caused in part by roots from virgina creeper and . .
Approved – Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd and Others HL 20-Jun-2002
The claimants suffered mesothelioma after contact with asbestos while at work. Their employers pointed to several employments which might have given rise to the condition, saying it could not be clear which particular employment gave rise to the . .
Applied – Nicholson v Atlas Steel Foundry and Engineering Co Ltd HL 1957
The deceased had worked in the defender’s steel foundry, inhaling there siliceous dust particles. He contracted pneumoconiosis and died. The complaints related to the defender’s failure to provide adequate ventilation to extract the dust. The . .
Cited – Simmons v British Steel plc HL 29-Apr-2004
The claimant was injured at work as a consequence of the defender’s negligence. His injuries became more severe, and he came to suffer a disabling depression.
Held: the Inner House had been wrong to characterise the Outer House decision as . .
Explained – McGhee v National Coal Board HL 1973
The claimant who was used to emptying pipe kilns at a brickworks was sent to empty brick kilns where the working conditions were much hotter and dustier. His employers failed, in breach of their duty, to provide him with washing facilities after his . .
Cited – Donachie v The Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police CA 7-Apr-2004
The claimant had been asked to work under cover. The surveillance equipment he was asked to use was faulty, requiring him to put himself at risk repeatedly to maintain it resulting in a stress disorder and a stroke.
Held: There was a direct . .
Cited – McWilliams v Sir William Arrol and Co Ltd HL 1962
A steel erector had fallen seventy feet to his death from a steel lattice tower. The employers had not provided a safety harness, but the judge found that he would not have used a security belt even if provided, and that the onus was on the pursuer . .
Cited – McTear v Imperial Tobacco Ltd OHCS 31-May-2005
The pursuer sought damages after her husband’s death from lung cancer. She said that the defenders were negligent in having continued to sell him cigarettes knowing that they would cause this.
Held: The action failed. The plaintiff had not . .
Cited – Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority HL 24-Jul-1986
A premature baby suffered injury after mistaken treatment by a hospital doctor. He had inserted a monitor into the umbilical vein. The claimant suggested the treatment should have been by a more senior doctor. The hospital appealed a finding that it . .
Cited – Environment Agency v Ellis CA 17-Oct-2008
The claimant was injured working for the appellants. The appellants now appealed the finding that they were responsible saying that other factors contributed to the injury, and in particular that he had fallen at home. The claimant said that that . .
Cited – Wootton v J Docter Ltd and Another CA 19-Dec-2008
The claimant sought damages saying that the contraceptive pill dispensed by the defendant was not the one prescribed by her doctor, and that she had become pregnant and suffered the losses claimed namely care, expenses and loss of earnings flowing . .
Cited – Sienkiewicz v Greif (UK) Ltd; Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council v Willmore SC 9-Mar-2011
The Court considered appeals where defendants challenged the factual basis of findings that they had contributed to the causes of the claimant’s Mesothelioma, and in particular to what extent a court can satisfactorily base conclusions of fact on . .
Cited – Shortell v BICAL Construction Ltd QBD 16-May-2008
(Liverpool District Registry) The claimant sought damages in a death caused by lung cancer where the deceased had been a smoker exposed also to asbestos in working for th edefendant.
Held: Applying the Bonnington test of causation, the issue . .
Cited – Alcock and Others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police QBD 31-Jul-1990
Overcrowding at a football match lead to the deaths of 95 people. The defendant’s employees had charge of safety at the match, and admitted negligence vis-a-vis those who had died and been injured. The plaintiffs sought damages, some of them for . .
Cited – Zurich Insurance Plc UK Branch v International Energy Group Ltd SC 20-May-2015
A claim had been made for mesothelioma following exposure to asbestos, but the claim arose in Guernsey. Acknowledging the acute difficultis particular to the evidence in such cases, the House of Lords, in Fairchild. had introduced the Special Rule . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Damages, Personal Injury, Health and Safety

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.180974

Haydon v Kent County Council: CA 1978

Impacted snow and ice had built up on a steep, narrow, made-up footpath from Monday to Thursday during a short wintry spell. The plaintiff slipped and broke her ankle. The highway authority operated a system of priorities. Their resources were fully taken up with sanding and gritting roads, but on the Wednesday evening one of their workmen reported the dangerous state of the particular path to them, and they took prompt action next morning, but not in time to prevent the plaintiff’s accident.
Held: The authority was liable. The duty to maintain the highway in section 44(1) included removing snow and ice and taking such protective measures as would render highways and paths safe for vehicles and pedestrians in bad weather conditions.
Lord Denning (dissenting): ”Repair’ means making good defects in the surface of the highway itself so as to make it reasonably passable for the ordinary traffic of the neighbourhood at all seasons of the year without danger caused by its physical condition. That is the combined effect of the statements of Blackburn J. in Reg. v. Inhabitants of High Halden (1859) 1 F. and F. 678; of Diplock L.J. in Burnside v. Emerson [1968] 1 W.L.R. 1490, 1497 and Cairns L.J. in Worcestershire County Council v. Newman [1975] 1 W.L.R. 901, 911. Thus deep ruts in cart roads, potholes in carriage roads, broken bridges on footpaths or bushes rooted in the surface make all the highways ‘out of repair’.’ The statutory definition does not imply that ‘maintain’ has a wider meaning than ‘repair’, and that given the legislation history the cause of action which an injured person has under the 1961 Act was limited to ‘non-repair’ of a highway, and did not include other cases. On the extent of that duty: ‘In my opinion, therefore, the duty in section 44 of the Act of 1959 ‘to maintain the highway’ is the equivalent of the duty at common law and in the Act of 1835 ‘to repair and keep in repair.’ It means that whenever there is a defect in the surface of the highway, the highway authority is under a duty to repair it. But it does not mean that the highway authority is under a duty to remove snow or ice whenever it makes the highway slippery or dangerous. I adhere, therefore, to the view I expressed in Burnside v. Emerson [1968] 1 W.L.R. 1490, 1494: ‘. . . an icy patch in winter or an occasional flooding at any time is not in itself evidence of a failure to maintain’.
Goff L.J said that the highway authority would be in breach of duty only if: ‘having regard to the nature and importance of the way, sufficient time [has] elapsed to make it prima facie unreasonable for the authority to have failed to take remedial measures. Then the authority is liable unless it is able to make out the statutory defence.’

Lord Denning MR, Goff and Shaw LJJ
[1978] QB 343, [1978] 2 All ER 97
Highways Act 1959 44(1), Highways Act 1961
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Inhabitants of High Halden 1859
highhalden1859
The court considered the liability of the parish for injury arising from a failure to repair the road. The road was ‘an old soft road formed of Weald of Kent clay, and had never been repaired with hard substances’. The evidence was that in wet . .
Cited – Burnside and Another v Emerson and Others CA 1968
The plaintiffs were injured in a road accident caused by flooding. They sued the executors of the deceased driver whose car spun out of control into the path of their own car, and also the highway authority, who had installed a proper system of . .
Cited – Hereford and Worcester County Council v Newman CA 1975
The council had been found responsible by the magistrates for allowing footpaths to be ‘out of repair’. The paths were unusable for various reasons including having a hawthorn hedge growing down the middle, and having barbed wire fencing strung . .

Cited by:
Considered – Stovin v Wise (Norfolk City Council, 3rd party) CA 16-Feb-1994
A road user was injured on a corner which was known to the highway authority to be dangerous. The authority had sought to make arrangements with the owner of land adjoining the highway to remove a bank which obstructed the view.
Held: The . .
Cited – Gorringe v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council HL 1-Apr-2004
Statutory Duty Not Extended by Common Law
The claimant sought damages after a road accident. The driver came over the crest of a hill and hit a bus. The road was not marked with any warning as to the need to slow down.
Held: The claim failed. The duty could not be extended to include . .
Cited – Jane Marianne Sandhar, John Stuart Murray v Department of Transport, Environment and the Regions CA 5-Nov-2004
The claimant’s husband died when his car skidded on hoar frost. She claimed the respondent was liable under the Act and at common law for failing to keep it safe.
Held: The respondent had not assumed a general responsibility to all road users . .
Cited – Thoburn v Northumberland County Council CA 19-Jan-1999
The claimant alleged that the defendant by allowing a flood across a road not to be cleared was in breach of their statutory duty under the 1980 Act.
Held: Though the blockage was not entirely on the Highway, the nature and extent of it was . .
Cited – Department for Transport, Environment and the Regions v Mott Macdonald Ltd and others CA 27-Jul-2006
Claims arose from accidents caused by standing water on roadway surfaces after drains had not been cleared by the defendants over a long period of time. The Department appealed a decision giving it responsibility under a breach of statutory duty . .
Cited – Goodes v East Sussex County Council HL 16-Jun-2000
The claimant was driving along a road. He skidded on ice, crashed and was severely injured. He claimed damages saying that the Highway authority had failed to ‘maintain’ the road.
Held: The statutory duty on a highway authority to keep a road . .
Cited – Ali v The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council CA 17-Nov-2010
The claimant appealed against rejection of her claim for damages after slipping on a footpath maintainable by the defendant after an accumulation of mud and debris. The claim appeared to be the first under section 130, and the highway authority . .
Cited – Pritchard v Clwyd County Council CA 16-Jun-1992
The plaintiff was injured wading through a flooded street. She claimed damages alleging a failure to maintain the storm water sewers. The defendants appealed a finding that they were responsible, and she appealed a contributory negligence . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Transport, Personal Injury, Negligence

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.180995