Personal Injury law

By Simon Allen, Russell Jones & Walker, London

Causation in a road traffic accidentCooper v Hatton: Court of Appeal: 3 May 2001: President Elizabeth Butler-Sloss: Lords Justice Pill and ParkerTwo cars travelling in opposite directions were in collision, with neither driver having any recollection of the impact.

There were no eye witnesses and no obvious explanation for the collision.Experts gave agreed evidence that the collision had taken place 'on or close to the centre line'.

The Appeal Court overturned the decision of the court at first instance and found that there ought to be a 50/50 liability split, since it could not be proved that one party was more to blame than the other.Lord Justice Pill dissented, saying that the judge of first instance had heard the evidence, and the inferences that he drew - particularly in relation to the debris and the final position of the vehicles following the accident - should not be interfered with.This was rejected by Lord Justice Parker, who stated that 'there was no evidential basis for the judge's conclusion that one driver or the other was wholly responsible for the collision'.The Court of Appeal adopted the approach which had been taken by Lord Justice Denning in the case of Baker v Market Harborough Industrial Co-Operative Society Ltd; Wallace v Richards (Leicester) Ltd 1953 1WLR 1470, stating: 'In the absence of any evidence enabling the court to draw any distinction between them, it should hold them both to blame and equally to blame.'The court was keen to highlight that Baker and Wallace were not to be taken as rigid authority.

The case underlines the requirements of the courts to cast the blame accordingly; at no time should the parties 'escape' liability, in Lord Denning's term.This case, although indirectly, may have an impact on the recent asbestos decision of Fairchild (see [2001] Gazette, 22 March, 40).As Lord Denning stated, where two defendants exposed the claimant to potential injury 'one or other is held to blame, and sometimes both'.