AB v South-West Water [1993] CA

[Tort – exemplary or punitive damages – public nuisance]
D water board allowed drinking water supplies to be contaminated by chemicals. Officials had acted in an arrogant and high-handed manner and deliberately misled the public as to the safety of the water. The injured sought exemplary as well as compensatory damages.

Held: exemplary damages were restricted to causes of action for which such an award had been made prior to Rookes v Barnard. As there was no earlier case in which exemplary damages had been awarded in public nuisance, they were not available here. In any case, concealing facts in the hope of escaping liability was not the same as seeking to make a profit, and officials of a nationalised industry were not servants of the Government.

D won

Adams v Bracknell Forest Borough Council [2004] HL

Whole case, here

[Tort – time limit of 3 years applied as C could reasonably have been expected to be curious about his injury, dyslexia does not prevent that]
D, the local authority where C went to school. C was dyslexic but this was not diagnosed and so he received no special teaching. C grew up with limited reading and writing skills and as a result, he suffered psychological problems and was disadvantaged in the employment market. He met an educational psychologist 16 years later, and he was advised he had a cause of action against the authority, so he sued. C claimed that his cause of action would only be time-barred only from when he knew he had a case.

Held: There was no reason why C should not have been curious about his ‘injury’ and he could have consulted his doctor and a solicitor. Therefore, s 11 of the Limitation Act 1980, which sets a time limit of 3 years for actions involving personal injury, could not be extended.

Phelps v London Borough of Hillingdon [2000] HL and Robinson v St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council [2002] (CA) approved.
 
C lost

Anton Piller v Manufacturing Processes [1976]

[Tort –equitable remedies – search orders]

C believed D was about to infringe their copyright of a computer converter; they knew that if they started legal action D would destroy all incriminating documents.

Held: The court could make such an order, but should exercise it only in an extreme case where there was grave danger of property being smuggled away or of vital evidence being destroyed.

The order was not, however, a search warrant authorising C to enter a D’s premises against his will, but an order on D in personam to permit C’s entry or be in peril of proceedings for contempt of court.

 
In practice the claimant’s representatives enters the premises (under the supervision of an experienced solicitor).
 

This search order has nothing to do with the police.
 

Lord Denning MR:

"During the last 18 months the judges of the Chancery Division have been making orders of a kind not known before. They have some resemblance to search warrants. Under these orders the plaintiff and his solicitors are authorised to enter the defendant’s premises so as to inspect papers, provided the defendant gives permission.
Now this is the important point: the court orders the defendant to give them permission. The judges have been making these orders on ex parte applications without prior notice to the defendant.".
 

The order was made and subsequent orders became known as Anton Piller Orders, now called a Search Order.

Also here

Appleton v Garrett [1996] Dyson J

[Tort – aggravated damages]
D a dentist over treated eight patients thought to be for the sake of profit.

Held: damages were awarded for pain and suffering and loss of amenity, increased by an aggravation factor of 15%.

(Nearly a hundred other patients subsequently settled for about £2m.)

Argyll v Argyll [1965] Ungoed-Thomas J

[Tort –equitable remedies]
D, The Duke of Argyll divorced on the grounds of his wife's adultery. W did not contest the divorce, on the understanding that nothing more would be said about the adultery. The Duke subsequently sold stories to the newspapers giving intimate details of that and other aspects of his wife's private life.

Held: The Dukes wife was granted injunctions prohibiting publication.

Attorney-General v Guardian Newspapers (No.2) [1988] HL

[Tort –equitable remedies]
D (Peter Wright) a former MI5 employee published a book Spycacher. The Attorney-General sought to restrain publication in the UK.

Held: members of the security services owe a lifelong duty of confidentiality. Permanent injunction refused because all the information was available in UK and the rest of the world.

Permanent injunction refused.

Attorney-General v PYA Quarries [1957] CA

[Tort –equitable remedies – public nuisance]
CC were residents living near a quarry that caused vibrations from the explosions. Dust spread in dry weather.

Held: injunction granted restraining the quarry owners from causing a nuisance

Ballantine v Newalls Insulation (2000) CA

[Tort – damages - deductions]
D the employer of C who contracted pneumoconiosis at work. Damages were agreed, but the judge ordered that £40,000 already paid by D under the Pneumoconiosis (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979 be deducted.

Held: as a matter of principle to avoid overcompensation, collateral benefits directly attributable to an injury should be deducted from damages. There are just two exceptions to that principle in respect of pensions paid for by the claimant and charitable gifts, and there was no reason to add another here.

D’s appeal allowed; deduction of the whole £40 000 ordered.

Bradford MBC v Arora [1991] CA

[Tort – exemplary or punitive damages]
D a college interviewed C (a Sikh) for a job and was asked questions during a preliminary interview suggesting racial prejudice particularly by the principal. This amounted to racial discrimination.  She was awarded compensatory damages and was awarded exemplary damages for the insulting way she was treated.

Held: The college was exercising a public function because of statutory powers, and so came within the scope of the tests in Rookes v Barnard.

Per curiam. Exemplary damages for discrimination will be justified only in exceptional cases and should be awarded by an industrial tribunal only where the award of compensatory damages, including aggravated damages, would be inadequate to punish the defendant for his outrageous conduct

[The subsequent decision in AB v South West Water appears to exclude racial discrimination from the class of cases for which exemplary damages will in future be available.] The Employment Appeal Tribunal struck out the exemplary damages, but they were restored by the Court of Appeal.

Broome v Cassell [1972] HL

[Tort – nominal damages]
D knew that a book about a former naval officer during World War II was libellous, but proceeded to publish anyway.

Held: £15,000 compensatory damages and £25,000 exemplary damages awarded. Exemplary damages were appropriate where, for example the defendant acted on a cynical calculation that the profit to be made from committing a tort would exceed the compensation payable.

C won

Chadwick v British Railways Board [1967] QBD

[Tort – damages – set by JSB – negligence – identifying party]
D the railway board responsible for a major train accident caused by their negligence. C the wife of a volunteer who took part in rescue work suffered nervous shock and became psychoneurotic as a result of his experiences.

Held: Damages were recoverable for nervous shock even where the shock was not caused by fear for oneself or the safety of one's children and in the circumstances injury by shock was foreseeable.

D ought to have foreseen the existence of a rescuer and accordingly owed him a duty.

C won

Also here

Christie v Davey [1893] North J

[Tort –equitable remedies]
C and D were neighbours. C a music teacher gave lessons and sometimes held musical parties. D objected to this, and retaliated by blowing whistles, banging on metal trays, shouting, and generally making a noise to disturb the music.

Held: An injunction was granted to C. D's conduct was purely malicious and was therefore unreasonable.

Constantine v Imperial London Hotels [1944] Birkett J

[Tort – nominal damages]
C was refused accommodation at a London hotel because he was a West Indian (cricketer). He stayed at another hotel and suffered no loss.

Held: Nominal damages of five guineas awarded in respect of D's breach of their common law duty as innkeepers to provide accommodation for any traveller.

Dering v Uris [1964] Lawton J

[Tort – nominal damages]
C sued for libel in D1's book Exodus. The jury found in C's favour but awarded only a halfpenny damages, thereby showing that in their opinion C's case was totally without merit and should never have been brought. [Since the publisher D2 had already paid 40s into court, C had to pay the costs of both sides from the date of the payment in.]

Donnelly v Joyce [1973] CA

[Tort – damages - deductions]
C was run over a lorry. His mother gave up her part-time job to care for him.

Held: C was entitled to claim damages in respect of services provided by a third party. It was not clear whether the mother should actually be paid.

Doyle v Wallace (1998) CA

[Tort – damages – future losses]
C would have been a drama teacher but was injured in a road accident.

Held: The likelihood of this was 50%. So, she was awarded half her notional "lost earnings".

Hotson distinguished.

Fitzgerald v Lane [1988] HL

[Tort – contributory negligence – effect on quantum]
C crossed the road against a red traffic light. He was hit by two cars.

Held: C he was as much to blame as the two drivers together and reduced his damages by 50%, leaving the drivers to pay 25% each.

Froom v Butcher [1975] CA

[Tort – contributory negligence – effect on quantum]
C’s injuries in a road accident were more serious because he was not wearing a seat belt. The accident was the fault of the other driver.

Held: C's damages were reduced by 25%.

25% became the usual deduction in this sort of case.

Harris v Brights Asphalt [1953] Slade J

[Tort - special damages]
C fell through a roof he was repairing, and sued his employers for failing to provide a safe system of work.

Held: the reasonable cost of private medical care can be claimed even though a claimant could have obtained the same care free of charge through the National Health Service.

Hay v Hughes [1975] CA

[Tort – right of action continues after death]
Two children went to live with their grandmother after their parents were killed in a road accident.

Held: the children were entitled to the notional cost of employing someone to perform the duties formerly performed by their parents, even where other family members were in fact prepared to share the load without payment.

Hicks v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1992] HL

[Tort – damages – none for expected loss of life]
Relatives of several Hillsborough victims claimed damages for pain and suffering experienced by their loved ones in the period immediately before their death.

Held: unconsciousness had occurred within seconds of the injuries and death within a few minutes. The law does not recognise fear as giving rise to damages.

Hollywood Silver Fox Farm v Emmett [1936] Macnaghten J

[Tort - aim to put the claimant back into position he would have been in had the damage not occurred]
D fired guns during the foxes' breeding season causing vixens kill their young.

Held: D's malicious intention made this a nuisance. £250 damages award with an injunction against any repetition.

Hunt v Severs [1994] HL

[Tort – damages – payment for care]
D injured C in a road accident. D and C subsequently married and D continued to provide part of her care.

Held: D need not pay the value of the services he was rendering.

The fact that the damages would actually be paid by D's insurers made no difference.

Husein v New Taplow Paper Mills [1988] HL

[Tort – damages - deductions]
D the employer of C who was injured at work. D found to be two-thirds responsible. C received half-pay for some of the time he was unable to work.

Held: the sick pay should be deducted from damages awarded the fact that the employer could recover these payments from insurance was irrelevant.

Lagden v O’Connor (2003) (HL)

Whole cases here.

[Tort - remedies - impecunious claimant]
D struck C’s car. C being impecunious (poor) had to hire a car from a car hire company that charged more for the credit involved because C could not pay “up front”. This arrangement was more expensive than one hired in the normal way, which C could not afford to do. Since 1933 the rule in Liesbosch Dredger case would not allow a defendant to suffer because of an impecuniosity of the claimant.

Held: The Liesbosch Dredger must now be regarded as overtaken by subsequent developments in the law.

C won

Limitation Act 1980 s.28 (1)

[Tort – time limits]
If on the date when any right of action accrued the person to whom it accrued was under a disability [i.e. was an infant, or of unsound mind], the action may be brought at any time before the expiration of six years [or three years where appropriate] from the date when he ceased to be under a disability or died (whichever first occurred) notwithstanding that the period of limitation has expired.

Livingstone v The Rawyards Coal Company (1880) HL

[Remedies - compensatory nature of damages]

C owned a small piece of land which was surrounded by D's land. Both parties thought coal beneath C's land was owned by D.

C's land was so small that he could never have mined the coal.

D mined the coal and made a substantial profit. 

During the mining houses on the surface of C's land were damaged (which was the first C knew of the mining).

Held: C was entitled to compensation for damage done to the houses.

The value of the coal to C was not the market value, because he could not have worked it, but the value in the ground plus any royalty he could have obtained by selling the right to mine it.

Lord Blackburn:

"...where any injury is to be compensated by damages, in settling the sum of money to be given for reparation of damages you should as nearly as possible get at that sum of money which will put the party who has been injured, or who has suffered, in the same position as he would have been in if he had not sustained the wrong for which he is now getting his compensation or reparation."

C received the value of coal before it was mined plus the royalty

Page v Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust [2004] QBD

[Tort - damages and compensation - investment costs are not a separate head of damages]
C suffered from cerebral palsy as a result of the negligence of the defendant health authority. Damages were in excess of £2 million.

C argued that because the Lord Chancellor has fixed the rate of 2.5% as the return to be expected from the investment of an award of damages for future losses, he would incur investment costs

Held: C could not recover the costs of investment advice and fund management charges. Investment costs were an annual cost to be regarded as part of the multiplicand.

D won