Legal causation Flashcards
Baker v Willoughby
The HL held that the first tortfeasor should pay for the damage he had ‘caused’ notwithstanding the intervention of the second incident. If the supervening event is a tort, the second tortfeasor should be responsible for the additional devalaution (damage, loss of amenity, loss of earning) caused by him.
Jobling v Associated Dairies
Predisposed illness will be taken into account in assessing damages (will lower them).
Gray v Thames Trains
Under the influence of pyschiatric condition caused by a crash by the D, the C killed a man with whom he had had an altercation.
Held: Damages could not be claimed successfully once the claimant had been convicted. Though the defendants had admitted their negligence, success for the claimant would be against the public policy maxim that ex turpi causa non oritur actio. If the case was extreme, and the order for detention was made purely for the defendant’s mental condition, and not for the criminal behaviour, the maxim might not apply, but that was not the case here.
Empress Carr Co v National Rivers Authority
Intervening Acts.
The first point to emphasise is that common sense answers to questions of causation will differ according to the purpose for which the question is asked. Questions of causation often arise for the purpose of attributing responsibility to someone, for example, so as to blame him for something which has happened or to make him guilty of an offence or liable in damages. In such cases, the answer will depend upon the rule by which the responsibility is being attributed.
Rubenstein v HSBC
Rix LJ stated that the Bank must reasonably contemplate, if it misleads its clients as to the nature of the investment and puts into place an investment that is unsuitable, that they will be liable for the loss.
There was an alternative investment in which the money could have been invested and which in fact suffered no loss.
The Bank had failed to follow the basic provisions of the Conduct of Business Rules such as know your Customer. If it had it would have recommended the right product.
Lamb v Camden LBC
Intervention of third party.
The defendants were alleged to have been negligent in causing the bursting of a water main which led to the flooding of the plaintiff’s house. Because of the need for repairs, the house remained empty for some time and damage was done by squatters. The judges denied damages from the Council for the damage done by the squatters, albeit for different reasons.
Knightley v Johns
Held: Break in the chain of causation. Negligent conduct is more likely to break the chain of causation. The instruction was too great: a new cause disturbing the sequence of events.
Reeves v Commissioner of Policce
Facts: C was the wife of a deceased man who committed suicide in custody. Known to be at suicide risk by the police. Police failed to take sufficient measures to keep an eye on him.
Held: police owed him a duty to take measures to prevent him from committing suicide. Whole point of police’s duty = take extra measures to avoid suicide: otherwise a meaningless duty.
Lord Jauncey: ‘an independent act superseding the effect of the tortious conduct must relate to an act which was outwith the contemplated scope of events to which the duty of care was directed
Corr v IBC Vehicles
Held: no duty of care to avoid suicide but possible to establish liability: the suicide did not break the chain of causation: causal link maintained.
C mentally ill = not free, deliberate, informed action to kill himself = no break in chain of causation
Lord Neuberger: damages should be reduced
Spencer v Wincanton Holdings
Facts: C suffered very bad injury as a result of D’s negligence: injured his leg –needed to use crutches. Decided that needed to get his leg amputated. Prosthetic leg. Decided to put fuel without material because lazy, tripped over, left permanently in a wheelchair. Is his act so remote as to break the chain of causation?
Held: no break in chain of causation but reduced damages for contributory negligence
Sedley LJ: ultimately about fairness. When the claimant suffers a further injury which, while it would not have happened without the initial injury, has been in substance brought about by the claimant and not the tortfeasor
The Wagon Mound (No 1)
Facts: D leaves work tent on the road unattended, with paraffin lamps explodes
Held: establishes fundamental principle of remoteness: was the damage of a reasonably foreseeable type? If yes: not too remote
Hughes v Lord Advocate
Held: The damage was not too remote it was foreseeable that the boys may suffer a burn from the lamp. The fact that the burn resulted from an unforeseeable explosion did not prevent the type of damage being foreseeable. D liable even if damage occurred in upredicted way.
You can only escape liability if the damage was in kind different from what was foreseeable: question of kind of liability.
Smith v Leech Brain
Smith v Leech Brain [1962]
Facts: C developed cancer after a burn at work. Activated an existing propensity for cancer.
Held: D liable for cancer bcs as long as some type of damage is reasonably foreseeable, it doesn’t matter that the extent of the damage wasn’t foreseeable (irrelevant that greater injury which wouldn’t have been foreseeable as the type of injury is foreseeable)
Thin Skull principle: you must take your victim as you find him. Is it reasonably foreseeable that some harm will result? If yes, liability is established. May be a limitation if your propensity is the reason for incurring harm
Tremain v Pike
Facts: C contracts Weil’s disease as a result of exposure to rat’s urine. D had negligently allowed his farm to be overrun with rats.
Held: injury must be foreseeable: rats bites would have been, but Weil’s disease = rare unforeseeable and too remote to be recoverable
Banque Bruxelles Lambert SA v Eagle Star Insurance Co Ltd [1997]
Rule: if D’s DoC is established by on assumption of responsibility, D’s liability only goes to what they assumed the duty in respect for.
