literal rule 8 marker

Question 1

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Answer 1

• when judges apply the plain, ordinary and literal meaning of the words in the statute.
• words are applied very strictly, exactly how they’re written. To find the ordinary meaning of words judges use a dictionary from the year that the act was passed.
• Lord Esher says the rule should be followed even if it leads to a ‘manifest absurdity’

Question 2

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Answer 2

• LNER v Berriman, here the victim was oiling points in the train track when he was hit and killed because a lookout was not provided.
• Fatal accidents act 1846 says a lookout must be provided when a railway worker is ‘repairing or relaying’ the track. The court said oiling was just ‘maintenance’, not relaying or repairing.
• LNER did not have to provide a lookout and so were not liable meaning Mrs Berriman did not get any compensation.
• This resulted in a very unfair outcome as the victim was carrying out an equally dangerous task but was offered no protection.

Question 3

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Answer 3

• DPP v Cheeseman, D was said to be masturbating in a public toilet and was charged with exposing himself to passengers in a street under the Town police clauses act 1847.
• The toilet was said to be a street but ‘passengers’ was defined in the 1847 dictionary as anyone ‘passing through’.
• The police were there for a specific reason and were not using the toilet for normal purposes so they weren’t technically passengers and so D was found ‘not guilty’.
• Again this is an absurd result as surely parliament’s intention was to stop all indecent acts in public places, no matter who was witnessing it.