Where a claimant, during a serious psychotic episode, committed a criminal offence, which she would not have committed but for the defendant’s negligence, can she recover damages for the consequences of having committed the offence, including her subsequent loss of liberty?
The Court considered an invitation to make use of the Practice Statement: ‘As this court has recently emphasised, it will be ‘very circumspect before accepting an invitation to invoke the 1966 Practice Statement’: Knauer v Ministry of Justice [2016] AC 908, para 23. It is important not to undermine the role of precedent and the certainty which it promotes. Circumstances in which it may be appropriate to do so include where previous decisions ‘were generally thought to be impeding the proper development of the law or to have led to results which were unjust or contrary to public policy’ – per Lord Reid in R v National Insurance Comr, Ex p Hudson [1972] AC 944, 966. Even then the court needs to be satisfied that a departure from precedent ‘is the safe and appropriate way of remedying the injustice and developing the law’ – per Lord Scarman in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex p Khawaja [1984] AC 74, 106.’
Lord Reed (President), Lord Hodge (Deputy President), Lady Black, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lady Arden, Lord Kitchin, Lord Hamblen
[2020] UKSC 43, [2021] PNLR 7, [2021] AC 563, [2021] 2 All ER 257, (2021) 177 BMLR 1, [2020] 3 WLR 1124, [2021] Med LR 26, [2020] WLR(D) 592, [2021] PIQR P7
Bailii, WLRD, Bailii Press Summary, Bailii Issues and Facts
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 02 August 2021; Ref: scu.655458
