The court considered the apportionment of responsibility under the 1945 Act.
Lord Denning MR said: ‘We have been referred to cases on this subject, particularly the recent case of Brown v Thompson [1968] 1 WLR 1003. Since that case it seems to have been assumed in some quarters that this court will rarely, if ever, alter an apportionment made by the judge. Such is a misreading of that case. I think that the attitude of this court was correctly stated in that case, at p 1012, by Edmund Davies LJ when he quoted from the judgment of Sellers LJ in Quintas v National Smelting Board [1961] 1 WLR 401, 409. This court adopts in regard to apportionment the same attitude as it does to damages. We will interfere if the judge has gone wrong in principle or is shown to have misapprehended the facts: but, even if neither of these is shown, we will interfere if we are of opinion that the judge was clearly wrong. After all, the function of this court is to be a Court of Appeal. We are here to put right that which has gone wrong. If we think that the judge below was wrong, then we ought to say so, and alter the apportionment accordingly.’ (p 1376)
Judges:
Lord Denning MR
Citations:
[1969] 1 WLR 1372
Statutes:
Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Approved – Pride Valley Foods Ltd v Hall and Partners TCC 4-May-2000
TCC Contract – Project Management – Role of Quantity Surveyor acting as Project Manager – Duty to warn clients of fire hazards – Causation – Contributory Negligence – Test whether defendants are Partnership or . .
Cited – Jackson v Murray and Another SC 18-Feb-2015
Child not entirely free of responsibility
The claimant child, left a school bus and stepped out from behind it into the path of the respondent’s car. She appealed against a finding of 70% contributory negligence.
Held: Her appeal succeeded (Majority, Lord Hodge and Lord Wilson . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Negligence
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.559413