Legal causation Flashcards
Supervening events - Baker v Willoughby
Leg injured in road accident, then injured after so he has to be amputated. Driver argues he shouldn’t be liable.
Held: This would produce ‘manifest injustice’
If the driver’s wasn’t negligent, the leg would not have been lost.
When there are two accidents consecutive and contribute to same injury, original defendant liable for overall injury.
Jobling - consideration of vicissitudes
Man injured at work, limited to carrying out light work which caused 50% salary reduction.
4 years later, diagnosed with a pre-existing spinal disease which would disable him entirely and he would be unable to work.
Held employer would only be liable for damages and loss of earning for the 4 years Mr Jobling was employed at reduced wages, as his pre-existing spinal condition must be considered to avoid excessive compensation.
Gray v Thames Trains - Illegality
Passenger in train crash, developed PTSD.
Stabbed someone, and sued Ds for negligence, damages for the conviction, detention and emotional suffering.
Held that a person cannot recover damages which result from a sentence imposed on him for a criminal act. He is not entitled to compensation as the losses resulted from his own criminal act.
Lamb v Camden (intervention by third party - squatters)
D’s negligence caused water pipe to burst, tenants moved out.
Squatters took over house who caused 30k worth of damage.
Reasonable foreseeability itself not enough to justify awarding damages if public policy reasons prevent it - here they did, since homeowners themselves are responsible for their own security and insurance.
Knightley v Johns - intervening event (tunnel case)
Man negligent in driving, car overturned in tunnel. Police closed one end but not the other. Inspector orders officer to drive motorbike down against traffic to close other end. C officer gets hit.
C sued original driver who caused the accident and police for the negligent order
Held:
Here, inspector’s negligence disturbed the sequence of events and interrupted the effect of the first defendant’s overturning of the car.
Intervention of claimant 1: McKew v Holland (Staircase jump)
McKew v Holland: Existing injury to leg due to negligence, later on claimant jumped near bottom of steps as leg was giving way, fractured ankle.
Factually he would not have suffered this injury if he hadn’t suffered the original one.
However, held to have acted unreasonably in jumping near the bottom - this is a novus actus interveniens.
Intervention of claimant 2: Corr v IBC - Suicide breaking chain?
C’s husband was injured at work, developed depression, and later died by suicide.
Held: The causal chain wasn’t broken—the depression was a foreseeable consequence of the original injury. Suicide wasn’t a novus actus interveniens as it resulted from severe mental illness, not a rational, informed choice.
Intervention of claimant 3: Spencer v Wincanton - Unreasonable failure to use crutches
Man had prosthetic leg and crutches after original injury, tried to fill his car without prosthesis or crutches, tripped and fell, suffering further injury and becoming wheelchair dependent.
Held that the chain is only broken where there is some unreasonable act from the claimant which means the injury has in substance come from them. Here, he didn’t act entirely unreasonably but there was contributory negligence.
Clay v TUI - Unreasonable conduct, taking risks
Claimant locked on balcony, after 30 mins tried to climb to other room, stepped on unstable ledge and seriously injured.
Held that his actions were a novus actus - he could not know if the ledge was safe but took a big risk.
Wagon Mound (no 1) - Foreseeability + Hughes v Lord Advocate - Type of harm
Established a requirement that the type of damage be reasonably foreseeable but the exact kind or extent does not need to be.
Thin skull principle
Smith v Leech Brain:
Held that you take your victim as you find them. The extent of harm doesn’t need to be foreseeable, just that harm is.
Hughes v Lord Advocate - type of injury that is foreseeable
The injury was ‘of the kind or type of accident which was foreseeable’. Respondent should not escape liability just because they could not envisage the exact way he might get hurt.
Reasonably should have been foreseen.
Tremain v Pike - remoteness and rat’s disease
Claimant working on a farm developed Weil’s disease, caused by exposure to rat’s urine.
Too remote – could not reasonably foresee the possibility
Armstead - damage clauses in car hire contracts
Held that clauses for damages from a car hire company can be reasonably foreseeable as long as it reflects the reasonable loss of use of the hire company.
Lagden v O’Connor - Thin skull when it comes to finances
Claimant in accident, could not afford to hire a replacement car so got a car on credit hire. This was more expensive than if he hired a car normally.
Should the defendant have to pay more money just because the claimant could not afford standard hire costs, and had to use more expensive route?
Yes as you first consider whether the type of loss is reasonably foreseeable (yes) then you take your victim as you find them.
Chester v Afshar’s application of causation + Duce
Chester: D doctor didn’t tell C about risk involved in surgery which materialised. Problem was that she would have delayed the surgery, but would likely have had it anyway so but-for causation not established.
Court argued but for causation established since on balance of probabilities, harm would not result on another day. In any event, departure from standard causation principles justified to vindicate autonomy.
Duce: Chester exception not to be extended widely.
Two-fold test when applying Montgomery: First ask what risks were or should have been known to the medical professional, then ask whether the patient should have been told about them, by reference to whether they were material.
Scope of Duty main case
Khan v Meadows - Acts or omissions which have consequences outside of the defendant’s duty of care do not give rise to liability.
SAAMCO - Scope of liability for coincidences
Surveyors were not liable for the additional fall in property value due to a financial crash - you aren’t liable for losses which would have occurred even if the information was correct - the lenders would have been subject to the crash regardless
Khan v Meadows facts + outcome
Doctor negligently failed to carry out tests for a disease, the kid had the disease + autism, mother argued he should be liable for both since she would have aborted it if she knew it had the disease.
Held the autism was not within the scope of the doctor’s duty.
SAAMCO Counterfactual is part of the test - Ask what the loss would have been if the info was correct - ASSUMING THE CLAIMANT would behave the same way - we are just looking at whether loss would be affected if the info was the same.
But remember it isn’t only part of the test - if the info isn’t within the scope of the doctor’s duty you draw line there.
Manchester Building Society v Grant Thornton - scope of duty in financial advice cases
GT negligently gave MBS bad advice, cost them money to correct.
Held that the losses did fall within scope of duty - look at what the professional undertook responsibility for, examine purpose of the advice.
The loss was a fruition of the risk which GT were to guard against.
