| Titchener v British Railways Board | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | House of Lords |
| Decided | 24 Nov 1983 |
| Citation | 1984 SC (HL) 34; [1983] UKHL 10; [1983] 3 All ER 770; [1983] 1 WLR 1427; 1984 SLT 192; SC (HL) 34 |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone, Lord Chancellor and Lord Fraser of Tullybelton |
| Keywords | |
| Torts, Negligence | |
Titchener v British Railway Board [1983] 1 WLR 1427 is a Scottish delict case concerning occupiers' liability, decided by the House of Lords. [1]
Miss Titchener, a 15-year-old girl, climbed through a gap in a fence onto a railway line owned by the British Railways Board. She was hit by a train. She sued the board under the Occupiers' Liability (Scotland) Act 1960 for failing in their common duty of care to keep the premises reasonably safe for visitors.
The Inner House of the Court of Session held that the pursuer had taken a chance, fully aware of the risks involved and that the Board had no responsibility to maintain the fence any more than they had. [2]
The House of Lords dismissed the claimant's final appeal, holding that she was not owed any duty under the Occupiers' Liability (Scotland) Act 1960 on the grounds that she had voluntarily decided to run the risk of walking on the railway line. As such, the defender had no duty, at least in relation to the pursuer, to maintain the fence any better than they had, based on the principle of volenti non fit injuria .
The following cases were referred to in this judgment:
The Transport Act 1962 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Described as the "most momentous piece of legislation in the field of railway law to have been enacted since the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854", it was passed by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government to dissolve the British Transport Commission (BTC), which had been established by Clement Attlee's Labour government in 1947 to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport. The Act established the British Railways Board, which took over the BTC's railway responsibilities from 1 January 1963 until the passing of the Railways Act 1993.
Delict in Scots law is the area of law concerned with those civil wrongs which are actionable before the Scottish courts. The Scots use of the term 'delict' is consistent with the jurisdiction's connection with Civilian jurisprudence; Scots private law has a 'mixed' character, blending together elements borrowed from Civil law and Common law, as well as indigenous Scottish developments. The term tort law, or 'law of torts', is used in Anglo-American jurisdictions to describe the area of law in those systems. Unlike in a system of torts, the Scots law of delict operates on broad principles of liability for wrongdoing: 'there is no such thing as an exhaustive list of named delicts in the law of Scotland. If the conduct complained of appears to be wrongful, the law of Scotland will afford a remedy even if there has not been any previous instance of a remedy being given in similar circumstances'. While some terms such as assault and defamation are used in systems of tort law, their technical meanings differ in Scottish delict.
In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation that is imposed on an individual, requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care to avoid careless acts that could foreseeably harm others, and lead to claim in negligence. It is the first element that must be established to proceed with an action in negligence. The claimant must be able to show a duty of care imposed by law that the defendant has breached. In turn, breaching a duty may subject an individual to liability. The duty of care may be imposed by operation of law between individuals who have no current direct relationship but eventually become related in some manner, as defined by common law.
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Volenti non fit iniuria is a Roman legal maxim and common law doctrine which states that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they are not able to bring a claim against the other party in tort or delict. Volenti applies only to the risk which a reasonable person would consider them as having assumed by their actions; thus a boxer consents to being hit, and to the injuries that might be expected from being hit, but does not consent to his opponent striking him with an iron bar, or punching him outside the usual terms of boxing. Volenti is also known as a "voluntary assumption of risk".
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In English law, remoteness between a cause of action and the loss or damage sustained as a result is addressed through a set of rules in both tort and contract, which limit the amount of compensatory damages available for a wrong.
The Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that covers occupiers' liability. The result of the Third Report of the Law Reform Committee, the Act was introduced to Parliament as the Occupiers' Liability Bill and granted royal assent on 6 June 1957, coming into force on 1 January 1958. The Act unified several classes of visitors to property and the duty of care owed to them by the occupier, as well as codifying elements of the common law relating to this duty of care. It also covered the duty owed to parties to a contract entering the property and ways of excluding the liability for visitors. The Act introduced an element of liability for landlords who failed to maintain their properties and were as a result responsible for the injury of a non-tenant, something counter to the previous common law rule in English law. The Act is still valid law, and forms much of the law relating to occupiers' liability in English law along with the Occupiers' Liability Act 1984.
Occupiers' liability is a field of tort law, codified in statute, which concerns the duty of care owed by those who occupy real property, through ownership or lease, to people who visit or trespass. It deals with liability that may arise from accidents caused by the defective or dangerous condition of the premises. In English law, occupiers' liability towards visitors is regulated in the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957. In addition, occupiers' liability to trespassers is provided under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1984. Although the law largely codified the earlier common law, the difference between a "visitor" and a "trespasser", and the definition of an "occupier" continue to rely on cases for their meaning.
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Wheat v E Lacon & Co Ltd [1966] 1 All ER 582 is a decision of the House of Lords concerning the definition of "occupier" for the purposes of Occupiers' Liability Act 1957. The leading speech in the case was delivered by Lord Denning MR.
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Donoghue v Folkestone Properties Limited (2003) is an English court case heard in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales concerning the tort of occupiers' liability from the Occupiers' Liability Act 1984.
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