Road traffic

Highway - duty to maintain - motorist severely injured after skidding on black ice - failure to salt road surface not breach of statutory dutyGoodes v East Sussex County Council: HL (Lord Slynn of Hadley, Lord Steyn, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Clyde and Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough): 15 June 2000

The claimant was driving along a public highway on a frosty November morning when his car skidded on black ice and crashed, causing him severe injuries.

He claimed damages against the highway authority alleging that it was in breach of its duty under s.41(1) of the Highways Act 1980 to 'maintain the highway' by failing to salt or grit the road when frost had been forecast.

The judge found that there was no breach of statutory duty and dismissed the action.

The Court of Appeal allowed the claimant's appeal and held that permitting the ice to remain on the road after a reasonable time constituted a breach of duty by the highway authority.

The authority appealed.Christopher Wilson-Smith QC and John Stevenson (instructed by Wynne Waxter Godfree, Lewes) for the highway authority; John Ross and Richard Carron (instructed by Townsends, Swindon) for the claimant.Held, allowing the appeal, that s.41(1) and the accompanying definition in the 1980 Act reproduced identical provisions which had first appeared as ss.

44(1) and 295(1) of the Highways Act 1959 with no change of meaning; that although as a matter of ordinary speech the 'maintenance of the highway' was capable of including salting and gritting and the removal of ice and snow, the context in which the words appeared might give them a narrower meaning; that 1959 Act was built upon centuries of highway law and its provisions invited reference to the earlier law; that before the 1959 Act the duty to maintain the highway did not include a duty to remove ice or snow, and the duty under the 1959 Act was the same as that which common law or statute imposed before; that the duty was to keep the fabric of the road in such a good state of repair as to render it reasonably passable for the ordinary traffic of the neighbourhood at all seasons of the year without danger caused by its physical condition; and that there was no duty to prevent or remove the formation or accumulation of ice and snow.