The plaintiff was injured walking down a narrow railway tunnel. The tunnel had been regularly used by locals as a short cut.
Held: Though there was a risk in doing so, that did not mean that she had accepted also the risk that the train driver would drive negligently. The chance which she took was no doubt limited to the danger from a train operated properly, in the ‘ordinary and accustomed way’. Lord Denning MR said: ‘knowledge of the danger is only a bar where the party is free to act on it so that the injury can be said to be due solely to his own fault . . Where knowledge of the danger is not such as to render the accident solely the fault of the injured party, then it is not a bar to the action but only a ground for reducing the damages.’
Judges:
Lord Denning MR
Citations:
[1956] 2 QB 264, [1956] 3 WLR 236
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Titchener v British Railways Board HL 24-Nov-1983
A 15 year old was hit by a train as she crossed a railway line. She said the defender had not maintained a fence separating the street from the railway. The defenders knew that people went through the gaps walked across. She had crossed several . .
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 – 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: 26 November 2022; Ref: scu.226756