The Defence Of Gray V Thames Trains Limited, And The Public Policy Approach

Lo Surdo, A. (2008) The latest word from the High Court on vicarious liability, LAW SOCIETY JOURNAL, September 45 (8), pp.64-65.

The idea of blame, defined as, “A particular kind of response (e.g. emotion), to a person, at fault, for a wrongful action,” plays a significant role in the study of crime, with respect to degrees of “fault.” In most modern societies, “criminal culpability,” or degrees of wrongdoing, makes a difference between the kinds of punishment one receives for his action(s). To be culpable for a crime, there must be a guilty act (Actus Rea), and a guilty mind (Mens Rea). Degrees of culpability often depends on the kind of mental state, (Mens Rea), one brings to the act in which he engaged. How much one is blameworthy for wrongful conduct depends in part on the state of mind in relation to the wrongful conduct. One’s mental state while engaging in wrongful conduct, which in a legal sense is determined by legislators, is characterized by the following terms: purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligence.

This essay will briefly explain negligence and its elements and will further critically analyse the UK compensation culture and discuss whether it exist, or whether it is a perception created by the media. This essay will further discuss whether the UK laws encourage people to blame and claim and what the UK law has done to prevent an increase in the compensation culture.

One of the fundamental principles of the Criminal Law System is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty (McSherry, 2003). By enacting punitive legislation such as the examples given above, it has been said that it is removing this Common law right from the individual (Greig, 1995). It has also been said that it creates an exception to the general principle of law that no person shall be imprisoned unless a court comprised of Judge/Jury is convinced, beyond reasonable doubt that the person committed a very serious offence. Thereby effectively allowing people to be detained without the burden of proving guilt (Keon-Cohen, 1992).

ANNECDOTE. The majority of the High Court in Clark v Marcourt, awarded damages of approximately A$1.2 million to the appellant, as the respondent was found guilty of breaching various warranties of the deed to purchase various property from a fertility centre, putting the appellant at a significantly better financial position than she would have been in had the breach not occurred. Prima facie, Clark seems to suggest undermining the compensatory principle in contract. ## This essay will analyse the decision in Clark through the doctrinal legal research method, using “normative” research. The aim of this research method is to answer the question of “what is the law” via logical reasoning and analysis of appropriate legal rules, and whether it applies to a particular factual situation.

Instead of confining itself simply to the mischief which the statute was intended to correct, the court resolves ambiguities by reference to the statute’s overall purpose. Indeed, many modern statutes are not simply intended to correct mischiefs in the common law but have a wider social agenda. Under the purposive approach the courts should try to give effect to this wider statutory purpose in interpreting ambiguous provisions in statutes. For the purposive approach the example case can be Knowles v Liverpool City Council (1993). Knowles was employed by the Council and was injured at work whilst handling a defective flagstone. He claimed damages from them under the Employers’ Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969. The Council claimed that they were not liable as a flagstone could not be “equipment” within the Act. The House of Lords held that it could. The purpose of the statute was to protect employees from exposure to dangerous materials. The words “equipment” should be interpreted in this context. The Council were therefore liable for Knowles’ injuries (Paul, 2002).

Prior to 2004 a landmark decision of R v G and Another it is well known that there were two main contrasting understandings of the term ‘reckless’ within the criminal law. The Draft Criminal Code 1989 proposes that recklessness should be the basic fault element for all offences . The first came from the case of Cunningham, in which the defendant stole a gas meter of a wall in order to steal money and gas escaped. The offender was charged with maliciously under s23 Offences against the person Act 1861. The Law Commission considered the term ‘malicious’ should be avoided and replaced with the term “reckless” in statutes, starting with Criminal Damage Act 1971. Cunningham recklessness demanded the conscious running of an unjustifiable risk. This type of recklessness is perhaps now referred to as ‘standard’ recklessness, but it has in the past often been referred to as

This essay will examine the doctrine of Judicial precedent that helps form the English Legal System. It will illustrate various views that have been raised by Judges and relating cases to the use of ‘Stare decisis’ when creating precedents. In addition it will discuss how the developments in the powers of the courts now also allow them to depart from these precedents to an extent.

A Sydney tramway passenger was injured in collision with another tram, which occurred after the driver collapsed at the controls. The plaintiff argued that the collision could have been avoided if the tramway authority had fitted the tram with system known as ‘dead man’s handle’, a system in use on Sydney’s trains. This would have stopped the tram and avoided the accident. The device had been rejected by the tramway authorities because it was felt that it could cause drivers to become tired, irritated and

This principle has been restricted by many exceptions: Failure leads to criminality about it, if the statute law is merely said that a success "caused" to be. But also in the field of law is not fixed common-law -crime several exceptions are discussed:

‘The "but for" test, although it often yields the right answer, does not always do so.’ Use the airline case in the conclusion Causation has been subject to copious amounts of judicial and academic debate over the last six decades. The trend being that but for causation is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough and there is a need to modify its structure in cases that do not have a simple yes or no answer to causation. This essay explores the development of the but for test’s modification through the case law specifically the exception in Fairchild and other cases relating to asbestos exposure as well as briefly considering the reaction of the Lords to the issue of loss of chance. Attention is also drawn to

The first point to note when analysing occupiers’ liability is that originally it was separate to the general principles of negligence which were outlined in Donoghue v Stevenson .The reason for this “pigeon hole approach” was that the key decision of occupiers’ liability, Indermaur v Dames was decided sixty six years prior to the landmark decision of Donoghue v Stevenson . McMahon and Binchy state the reason why it was not engulfed into general negligence, was because it “… had become too firmly entrenched by 1932 … to be swamped by another judicial cross-current” Following on from Indermaur v Dames the courts developed four distinct categories of entrant which I will now examine in turn.

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom’s decision in Mohamud represents a subtle yet fundamental change to the area of vicarious liability. Vicarious liability derives from a combination of legal principles and judicial discretion. It is not the result of a clearly developed, logical legal principle . The moving landscape of vicarious liability, as evidenced in Mohamud, can be attributed largely to the courts desire to protect vulnerable plaintiffs. This has occurred by liberal application of existing legal principles and expansive use of judicial discretion.

Perhaps the greatest insight provided by my colleague's discussion is the deconstruction of the process by which the concept of negligence did ultimately emerge as a new tort standard. Here, the discussion illustrates the challenge before a judicial body when a legal conflict appears to bring about a new and previously unforeseen point of contention. In this case, as my colleague highlights so effectively, the charge of fraud would be the only theretofore existent way of legally addressing liability for a business or organization such as the defendant in this case. The great insight provided by my colleague is in acknowledgement of the exhaustive review of existing legal documents engaged by the ruling parties and arguing parties. This process demonstrates well that even where no precedent existing for what would become the charge of negligence,

Conclusions reached by the court found that primarily national legislation which excludes or limits state liability as a result of interpretation of community law by a national court, specifically a court at last instance, was in fact prohibited by community law. The court ruled that community law prohibits, firstly, the exclusion by Italian law of the state from liability where damages where caused to individuals as result of an infringement which stemmed from an interpretation of either ‘evidence carried out by the court’, ‘provisions of law’ and ‘assessment of fact’ . The court also included, secondly, limitation of state liability in their ruling where state liability was restricted exclusively to cases of ‘international fault’ and ‘serious misconduct’ on behalf the court.