A line of traffic studs had been placed in the centre of the highway. One of them had become loose. As a car passed over the loose stud it shot out and struck the plaintiff on her bicycle. She fell off and was injured. She sued the highway authority. The plaintiff succeeded at trial but the highway authority appealed on the ground that the plaintiff’s complaint was of non-repair of the highway.
Held: The appeal failed.
Slesser LJ said: ‘The question to be decided by the court is essentially this. Have the defendants caused a nuisance?’ They had.
Romer LJ said: ‘I think that the defendants have rightly been made liable for the damage caused to the plaintiff, and for this reason: they have done something on the highway not for the purpose of maintaining it as a highway but for some totally different purpose, and the act which they did had become at the time the injury was caused to the plaintiff a nuisance to the highway for which they were, in my opinion, properly made liable, notwithstanding the fact that they are also the highway authority.’
Romer LJ, Slesser LJ
[1937] 1 KB 112
England and Wales
Cited by:
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 – Shine v Tower Hamlets CA 9-Jun-2006
The claimant a nine year old boy had attempted to leap frog a bollard. He was badly injured when it fell. The authority had identified that it was insecure some months earlier. The authority appealed a finding of negligence and breach of statutory . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Road Traffic, Torts – Other
Leading Case
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.195692