is an English
Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
judgment, by which it was decided that negligently caused personal injury cannot be recovered under the
trespass to the person, but the
tort of negligence must be tried instead.
Facts
Mr Cooper (the
defendant
In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...
) negligently ran over Mrs Letang (the
plaintiff) in his
Jaguar motor car while she was
sunbathing on a piece of grass where cars were parked. The plaintiff filed a claim in
trespass to the person, because the claim in
negligence was
time-barred. Trespass to the person is a
tort involving wrongful direct interference with another person and traditionally included both intentional and negligent acts.
Judgment
The Court of Appeal, consisting of
Lord Denning MR,
Diplock LJ and
Danckwerts LJ, held unanimously that since Mr Cooper's actions were negligent rather than intentional, the statute of limitations barring claims actions for damage caused by negligence applied, meaning that Mrs. Letang could not recover as she had filed suit too late.
Effect
The effect of this case was that an action for trespass to the person can now only be brought for
intentional torts, such as
assault
An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...
,
battery,
false imprisonment,
trespass to land
Trespass to land is a common law tort or crime that is committed when an individual or the object of an individual intentionally (or, in Australia, negligently) enters the land of another without a lawful excuse. Trespass to land is ''actionabl ...
or
chattels, etc. A claimant wishing to recover damages to his person or property that were caused by the defendant's negligent action must prove all the elements of the
tort of negligence. However the decision did not affect actions for trespass to goods.
Conversion is still a
strict liability
In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant.
...
tort under English law, and recover does not depend upon establishing negligence.
Lord Denning summarised the change:
See also
*
English tort law
External links
*
{{UK law
Lord Denning cases
1964 in British law
Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases
1964 in case law
English trespass case law