Stanton v Collinson [2010] EWCA Civ 81
Stanton v Collinson [2010] EWCA Civ 81
Facts
Mr Stanton was a front seat passenger in Mr Collinson’s car. At first instance it was found that Mr Stanton had been sitting in the passenger seat with a female passenger on his lap; neither was wearing a seat belt. Mr Collinson lost control of the car and crashed, suffering fatal injuries. Mr Stanton suffered a depressed fracture to the back of his skull which caused significant damage to his frontal lobe through a contra-coup effect. A joint report stated that a seat belt would have significantly reduced the severity of his head injury but that Mr Stanton would still have suffered a serious head injury. At trial, the Defendant’s expert defined ‘serious head injury’ as meaning mild to moderate concussion; the Claimant’s expert was not asked to define the term. The Claimant submitted that his expert report indicated a more severe definition.
Cox J refused to award contributory negligence on the ground that the Defendant had failed to prove that wearing a seat belt would have made “a considerable difference” to the injuries. The Defendant appealed on this point. If the Judge was wrong to find that there was no contributory negligence, the Defendant raised two further issues on appeal: whether the reduction for contributory negligence should be greater than the 15% set out in Froom v Butcher [1976] 1 QB 286 on the ground that Mr Stanton’s level of contributory negligence was greater than that of a passenger who merely omitted to put on a seatbelt; and whether the court ought to revisit the decision in Froom v Butcher and increase the levels of contributory negligence attributable to failure to wear a seat belt in light of developments over the intervening 30 years.
Held
The Court of Appeal held that the Judge was entitled to say that the experts’ evidence left her unable to hold that the Defendant had proved that the failure to wear a seat belt made a “substantial difference” to Mr Stanton’s injuries. Although a sense of proportionality had to be exercised and medical evidence was not a necessity in every seat belt case or even every head or brain injury case, the Judge was entitled to find that medical evidence was required here to resolve the uncertainties.
The Court further found that Cox J’s use of the “substantial difference” test from Froom v Butcher was correct. Although there might be unusual cases in which departure from the two brackets contemplated in Froom v Butcher was appropriate, generally there should be no reduction in a case where the injury would have been different but not substantially different had a seatbelt was worn. The purpose of Froom v Butcher was to prevent prolonged or intensive enquiry into fine degrees of contributory negligence in seat belt cases which was undesirable as a matter of public policy.
Comment
Had the Appellant not failed on the first issue of causation, this case would represent a further attempted foray by Defendants against the percentages set by Lord Denning MR in Froom v Butcher. No argument on Froom v Butcher was heard by the Court in this case. The Court emphasised that it should not be taken as having indicated in this decision that it would welcome the opportunity to revisit the issue in the future.
Thea Wilson