United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

At delivering judgment on 26th November 1969,—

LORD REID .—My Lords, the appellant sustained in the course of his employment trivial injuries which were admittedly caused by the fault of the respondents. His back and hips were badly strained, he could not bend, and on several occasions his left leg suddenly "went away from" him. I take this to mean that for a short time he lost control of his leg and it became numb. He would have recovered fully from his injuries in a week or two but for a second accident in which he suffered a severe fracture of his ankle. The question in this case is whether the respondents are liable for the damage caused by this second accident. If they are so liable, then damages have been agreed at £4915. If they are not so liable, then damages are agreed at £200, the sum awarded in the Court of Session.

Some days after the first accident the appellant was offered the tenancy of a flat in Succoth Street, Glasgow. He went to inspect it, accompanied by his wife and child and a brother-in-law. The flat is approached by a steep stair between two walls and there was no handrail. When they left the flat, the appellant sought to descend the stair with his child, in advance of his wife and brother-in-law. The only reliable evidence of what then happened is that of the appellant and it is far from clear. I think it best to quote this evidence.

The appellant first said:

"Well, we came out of the house and I was at the top of the stairs with my daughter, and I had her by the hand, and I think it was my brother-in-law closed the door, and he was holding it while my wife was locking it, and I lifted my right foot to go down the stairs, and as I lifted my right foot, this left leg just seemed to vanish under me, and I threw my daughter back in case I would take her down with me. I found myself going and I couldn't stop, and the only thing I could do was, instead of toppling down head first, I threw myself and I landed on my right—even when I landed on my feet, my left went from me, but it was mostly my right I landed on."

Then later he said:

"I put my right leg down to go, and as I put it down, my left leg just went, and I threw my daughter back and instead of falling I made to jump."

(Q.) "And did you land on your feet?" (A.) "Yes. I ended up sitting down but I was on my feet as I hit the ground." (Q.) "Did you jump about 12 feet from the top of the stair down to the next landing?" (A.) "Well, I jumped ten steps…" And finally he said:

"I was actually falling, I was completely falling and I had to try and stop myself. My right leg was down then, and I threw myself so that I could land in a standing position instead of falling over and falling down and breaking my neck."

(Q.) "Did you project yourself into the air with your right foot?" (A.) "From the wall and part of my right foot, I kind of pushed myself from the wall on the left." (Q.) "Did you not think of falling backwards, just sitting down?" (A.) "That was impossible, because I was in flight. As a matter of fact, I couldn't come back, not unless I reversed my body, and I wasn't doing that."

The appellant's case is that this second accident was caused by the weakness of his left leg, which in turn had been caused by the first accident. The main argument for the respondents is that the second accident was not the direct or natural and probable or foreseeable result of their fault in causing the first accident.

In my view the law is clear. If a man is injured in such a way that his leg may give way at any moment, he must act reasonably and carefully. It is quite possible that in spite of all reasonable care his leg may give way in circumstances such that as a result he sustains further injury. Then that second injury was caused by his disability, which in turn was caused by the defender's fault. But if the injured man acts unreasonably, he cannot hold the defender liable for injury caused by his own unreasonable conduct. His unreasonable conduct is novus actus interveniens. The chain of causation has been broken and what follows must be regarded as caused by his own conduct and not by the defender's fault or the disability caused by it. Or one may say that unreasonable conduct of the pursuer and what follows from it is not the natural and probable result of the original fault of the defender or of the ensuing disability. I do not think that foreseeability comes into this. A defender is not liable for a consequence of a kind which is not foreseeable. But it does not follow that he is liable for every consequence which a reasonable man could foresee. What can be foreseen depends almost entirely on the facts of the case, and it is often easy to foresee unreasonable conduct or some other novus actus interveniens as being quite likely. But that does not mean that the defender must pay for damage caused by the novus actus. It only leads to trouble if one tries to graft on to the concept of foreseeability some rule of law to the effect that a wrongdoer is not bound to foresee something which in fact he could readily foresee as quite likely to happen. For it is not at all unlikely or unforeseeable that an active man who has suffered such a disability will take some quite unreasonable risk. But if he does, he cannot hold the defender liable for the consequences.

So in my view the question here is whether the second accident was caused by the appellant doing something unreasonable. It was argued that the wrongdoer must take his victim as he finds him and that that applies not only to a thin skull but also to his intelligence. But I shall not deal with that argument because there is nothing in the evidence here to suggest that the appellant is abnormally stupid. This case can be dealt with equally well by asking whether the appellant did something which a moment's reflection would have shown him was an unreasonable thing to do.

He knew that his left leg was liable to give way suddenly and without warning. He knew that this stair was steep and that there was no handrail. He must have realised, if he had given the matter a moment's thought, that he could only safely descend the stair if he either went extremely slowly and carefully, so that he could sit down if his leg gave way, or waited for the assistance of his wife and brother in-law. But he chose to descend in such a way that, when his leg gave way, he could not stop himself. I agree with what the Lord Justice-Clerk says at the end of his opinion and I think that this is sufficient to require this appeal to be dismissed.

But I think it right to say a word about the argument that the fact that the appellant made to jump when he felt himself falling is conclusive against him. When his leg gave way, the appellant was in a very difficult situation. He had to decide what to do in a fraction of a second. He may have come to a wrong decision: he probably did. But, if the chain of causation had not been broken before this by his putting himself in a position where he might be confronted with such an emergency, I do not think that he would put himself out of court by acting wrongly in the emergency unless his action was so utterly unreasonable that even on the spur of the moment no ordinary man would have been so foolish as to do what he did. In an emergency it is natural to try to do something to save oneself and I do not think that his trying to jump in this emergency was so wrong that it could be said to be more than an error of judgment. But for the reasons already given I would dismiss this appeal.

LORD HODSON .—My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading the opinion of my noble and learned friend, Lord Reid, with which I agree.

I would dismiss the appeal.

LORD GUEST .—My Lords, the appellant was injured in an industrial accident on 14th February 1963, in circumstances under which the respondents are admittedly responsible. For the injuries sustained by him in that accident the Lord Ordinary has awarded the appellant £200 damages. No question arises as to the respondents' liability for this accident nor as to the amount of damages. The injury was not a serious one, but it left the appellant with a slight weakness of his left leg, which was still present on 7th March 1963, when he met with a second accident on the common stair of a house at Succoth Street, Glasgow. He sustained serious injuries on this occasion when he fractured his right ankle and left os calcis. This has left him with a serious permanent disability. The Lord Ordinary found, and his decision was concurred in by the Second Division of the Court of Session, that the appellant cannot recover damages for this second accident, as it is too remote. If, however, he had considered the respondents liable for the consequences of the second accident, he would have awarded the appellant an additional £4915 damages.

The Lord Ordinary has found the appellant's explanation of his second accident confusing, and I am not surprised, when his evidence is considered. He, his wife, his young daughter and his brother-in-law were inspecting a house in Succoth Street, Glasgow, with a view to his occupancy. He took with him a measuring tape for taking measurements for carpets and wax cloth. After leaving the house his account proceeds as follows:

"Well, we came out of the house and I was at the top of the stairs with my daughter, and I had her by the hand, and I think it was my brother-in-law closed the door, and he was holding it while my wife was locking it, and I lifted my right foot to go down the stairs, and as I lifted my right foot, this left leg just seemed to vanish under me, and I threw my daughter back in case I would take her down with me. I found myself going and I couldn't stop, and the only thing I could do was, instead of toppling down head first, I threw myself and I landed on my right—even when I landed on my feet, my left went from me, but it was mostly my right I landed on."

In cross-examination he explains that he threw himself so that he would land in a standing position instead of falling over and breaking his neck. He further explains that he projected himself from the wall with his right foot and he assents to the suggestion that he jumped the twelve steps clear, hitting the bottom step.

The Lord Ordinary has found that when the appellant was at the top of the stairs he made a deliberate and voluntary—"and apparently unnecessary"—leap down ten steep steps of the tenement stairway. Upon this view he has held that the second accident was not a direct and probable result of the appellant's first accident.

The Lord Justice-Clerk takes a slightly different approach. He expresses the view that in the situation in which the appellant was placed at the top of the stairs, when his left leg gave way, with an apparent choice between two evils, the appellant may not have been unreasonable in jumping as he did. But the Lord Justice-Clerk considers that, as the appellant's left leg had "gone away" from him on several occasions before the second accident—"Yet, with this knowledge and experience, he set out to descend a flight of stairs without a stick or other support and without the assistance, which was available, of his wife or brother-in-law. I cannot regard that as a reasonable act and it was, in my opinion, an intervening act which broke the chain of causation."

Lord Walker's view is again different. He disagreed with the Lord Ordinary as to the jump and finds that the real cause of the second accident was the appellant's own reckless conduct in hurrying down the stair in the circumstances. I am doubtful whether the evidence supports a finding of undue haste.

I am not sure what is Lord Wheatley's approach, but in the concluding passage of his judgment he appears to be agreeing with the Lord Ordinary that the jump was something which no reasonable person would have done.

I would have difficulty in faulting the Lord Ordinary's view. If the appellant was believed—and the Lord Ordinary bases his judgment upon his evidence—he performed a not inconsiderable acrobatic feat in jumping down ten steps clear. "The grand rule," said Lord Kinloch in Allan v. Barclay (1864) 2 M 873 (at p. 874) "on the subject of damages is, that none can be claimed except such as naturally and directly arise out of the wrong done; and such, therefore, as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the view of the wrongdoer." This has been elaborated, discussed and explained in future cases but never improved upon. If, on the other hand, the action which resulted in the injury was something unaccountable, "a new cause which disturbs the sequence of events, something which can be described as either unreasonable or extraneous or extrinsic," the chain of causation is broken. (See The Oropesa, Lord Wright at p. 39.) In S.S. Baron Vernon v. S.S. Metagama Viscount Haldane states (at p. 25) that damages are recoverable if they are the natural and reasonable result of the negligence and it will assume this character if it can be shown to be such a consequence as in the ordinary course of things would flow from the negligence. "Reasonable human conduct is part of the ordinary course of things."

If the appellant jumped, as found by the Lord Ordinary, I cannot regard this as reasonable human conduct. But whether this is to judge the appellant's conduct in too fine scales, I would regard the Lord Justice-Clerk's ground of judgment as equally satisfactory. The appellant was still convalescent from his first accident when the second accident occurred. He was limping. He had the experience of his leg giving way. Yet he chose without assistance, without hanging on to the wall, to commence to descend those steep stairs holding his young daughter by the hand. Like the Lord Justice-Clerk, I could not characterise such conduct as other than unreasonable in the circumstances. If this be so, then the chain of causation between the first and second accident is broken and the appellant must fail.

I would dismiss the appeal.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE .—My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading the opinion of my noble and learned friend, Lord Reid. I agree with it and would also dismiss the appeal.