Omissions Flashcards
R v Pittwood.
he defendant was the person responsible for opening and closing the gates on a level crossing. Pittwood wandered off, and someone was hit by a train. If we think about the line of causation, did his failure to act cause death? Yes. He can only be liable for the death if he had a duty to act? The court said he had a contractual obligation - a legal obligation - to do a particular thing and he didn’t do it, which meant someone died. Imposition of a duty there based on contract was to do with the thing the contract compelled him to do. We have to be cautious there because of the scope - people are contracted to do things all the time. Finch is contracted to teach us law — if someone were to fall down the stairs…is her duty to help? We are not asking anyone to prevent death or intervene with medical treatment. We are just asking someone to act in some way. The further away the incident away is from the contractual duty, the less likely there is a duty to help.
R v Stone and Dobinson:
The defendants were a couple who lived together and the elderly sister of one of them came to live with them. She had extreme anorexia. She laid in bed all day. Stone and Dobinson didn’t do much to help her. They tried to get her food and tried to get her out of bed. They realized that a doctor was needed. They were people of limited intellect and didn’t know how to use a phone. The sister died. Stone and Dobinson were prosecuted. The basis of the duty there is that they had in fact acted, but their action was insufficient. As people that otherwise wouldn’t have had a duty, they took on the duty of care…and failed to see it through. This gives us a morally questionable situation here. They would have been better off letting her die in bed without attempting to help her. Because they did their incompetent best to help, they assumed a duty of care.
R v Miller
Miller was a tramp and homeless. He was sheltering in a house. He was smoking, went to sleep, and woke up to find his mattress on fire; he went to another room and fell asleep. The house burnt down. No one died. It was damage to the property. The court said there, if you are a person who creates a dangerous situation, you acquire a duty to act to mitigate the harm arising from the situation.
Khan [1998] Crim LR 830 (CA)
Consideration was given to whether a drug dealer whose customer had collapsed following send-administration of drugs was under a duty to act by summoning medical assistance. However, this could be seen as the application of the Miller principle rather than a new category of duty.
Fagan v MPC [1969] 1 QB 439
This involved in driving onto a police officer’s foot. Fagan argued and the court did not disagree, that when he parked his car on the officer’s foot that there was no mens rea. The police officer then had to ask Fagan to move his car, but he refused and turned off the engine and laughed.
Fagan’s defence was that he had no mens rea when he committed the act of assault. So how do we reconcile this with the doctrine? The court had to tie his later mens rea with his initial action. The court considered it one continuous act - the act continued on when he refused to turn off the ignition and laughed.
R v Smith (1979) CLR 251
A husband and a wife; the wife was pregnant and gave birth at home. The child was stillborn. The woman was then having troubles and needed a doctor. The husband wanted to call a doctor but his wife did not want that. A few days later his wife went unconscious. He then called a doctor but his wife had passed away. He was prosecuted for criminal omission. In this case the trial court the defendant was raising a legal issue - and the jury was instructed that people do have a duty to your spouse. The answer was yes, you do have a duty, but the question was posed as to whether the spouse had a right to omission based on her wishes.
R v Gibbins and Proctor (1918) 13 Cr App R 134 (CCA)
A father and his seven year old daughter that they lived with the father’s girlfriend. The daughter starved to death. The step-mother hated the child and was the driving force behind starving the child. The court found that it was so obvious of omission liability. The argument for the step mother was more complicated because the step mother is not her’s biologically. The step-mother, however, had assumed responsibility. The step mother had accepted the child into her home and she had received grocery money to feed the family on a monthly basis from her boyfriend.
R v Evans
Elder sibling brought drugs into the home which she shared with her younger sister and mother. The younger sister overdosed, and the the mother and elder sibling did not call for help as they were worried they would be criminally charged for possession of drugs. The younger sister died.
The court held that the mother had a duty of care and was liable.
