Court : House of Lords
..... be an excuse for conduct either positive or negative it must in my opinion be a complete answer just as inevitable accident must be an answer. ..... through insanity of the nature and quality of his acts it would be a defence to the petition, and he added that if for such a purpose the first of the m'naghten rules had been invoked it was inevitable and logical that the second rule should also be available, that is to say, that even if the spouse charged did know the nature and quality of his acts he would have a defence if, through insanity, he ..... in other words, as i venture to think, it is impossible to stop at cases of insanity; and when questions of cruelty arise problems of the kind which i have mentioned will inevitably also arise, thereby adding to the law not only an altogether undesirable refinement but also a departure, as i think, from the ordinary sense and meaning of the language which parliament has ..... it is also true to say that if the purely objective test be taken there will inevitably be created a wide divergence between the law of england and the law of scotland upon this matter, as the latter ..... the case and the arguments presented to your lordships' house have inevitably raised the general and important questionto what extent is insanity an answer to a plea of cruelty in ..... i observe at once that there is therefore inevitably involved the case, which must indeed be common if perhaps not the most common of all cases, where the conduct is founded not on delight in the pain .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... but i would expect clearer words if it were intended that he should also be held responsible if something dangerous got onto his floor' and made it for the time being " inefficient" through some inevitable accident or the fault of some other person not his servant. ..... , that since the evidence as to the condition of the floors and passages at the time the night shift came on was very meagre and that practically the only evidence of their slippery condition was the accident to the plaintiff, i come to the conclusion that the conduct of the respondents can, at the highest, be said to have (been an error of judgment in circum stances of difficulty, and such an error of judgment does not, in my opinion, amount to negligence ..... yet the plaintiff says (at page 15a) that except for the accident to himself on this occasion in august, he has never known any accident happen to any one in the factory through these causes. ..... is a potential danger, that the defendants must be taken to have been aware of this, that in the circum stances nothing could have been done to remedy the slipperiness, that the defendants allowed work to proceed, that an accident due to slipperiness occurred, and that the defendants are therefore liable. ..... came on duty, and he has negatived every specific allegation of negligence as pleaded, but he has held the respondents liable because they did not close down the factory, or the part of the factory where the accident occurred, before the commencement of the night-shift. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... it went on the then prevalent rule of the law of contract that a party who " by his own contract creates a duty or charge upon himself, he is " bound to make it good, if he may, notwithstanding any accident by " inevitable necessity, because he might have provided against it by his " contract. ..... then it is said that it is a basic principle of land: law not now to be disturbed hi your lordships' house which has prevailed both in relation to the conveyance of freeholds and leasesthat the incidence of the risk of accidents passes to the purchaser or lessee. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... what the defence over many days were saying was that there was grave risk of accident, danger through " fall-out" and the risk of hostile attack, difficulty of distinguishing missiles on radar and an inevitable period of time which must elapse before missiles would be distinguished. ..... for the purposes of the act absorb or justify the short-term objective, and if its reasonableness is a question for the jury, then the evidence dealing with the horrors of nuclear warfare, the possibility of nuclear accidents and the undesirability of possessing nuclear weapons was wrongly excluded. ..... in the course of a long argument about these matters counsel said that his evidence would deal with the effect of exploding a nuclear bomb, and at other times reference was made to the possibility of accident or mistake, and other reasons against having nuclear bombs. ..... in cases where by some accident they have unintentionally transgressed the letter of 'the act, the necessity for the attorney-general's fiat is a deliberate and effective protection. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... certainly have taken it: suppose they could have brought it home and used it, could it then have been said that no compensation was due because the enemy advance had made the taking inevitably necessary they would probably have had to throw it into the sea because no ships were available, but admittedly there is no difference in principle between taking for use and taking for destruction. ..... i can see no difference between that case and the destruction of these installations, except perhaps that the destruction of the wolfram would have been inevitable, whereas if early reconquest of burma had been at all likely, it might have been decided that it was better to leave the installations intact in the hope that they would be recovered in a more or ..... compensation, the latter do not, because they are "merely incidents," which the state does not cause "librement, mais par n cessit et par accident" (le droit des gens, book iii, chapter 15). ..... the situation of his affairs will admit of it; but no action lies against the state for misfortunes of this nature,for losses which she has occasioned, not wilfully, but through necessity and by mere accident, in the exertion of her rights. ..... for since many accidents may happen wherein a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm, as not to pull down an innocent man's house to stop the fire when the next to it is burning; and a man may ..... these are merely accidents,they are misfortunes which chance deals out to the proprietors on whom they .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... principle so far as loss of earnings and out-of-pocket expenses are concerned is that the injured person should be placed in the same financial position so far as can be done by an award of money as he would have been had the accident not happened, and i will endeavour to apply this in the first place to the special damage claimed in respect of the loss of earnings. ..... the principle can, however, afford some guidance to the tribunal in assessing compensation for the financial loss resulting from an accident, and in such cases it has been referred to as the dominant rule of law (see per lord wright in liesbosch dredger v. ..... taking all these matters into consideration, you will consider what is fair that a man of this age should receive in respect of the amount of disability which you find this accident has imposed upon him, remembering also that what you give is given once and for all". ..... no doubt some detailed examination is or may he necessary as regards actual loss suffered between the date of the accident and the date of the trial, but, as regards prospective loss, examination in full detail would be of little assistance, and indeed would generally not be possible, because, as i have said, there can only be an estimate of loss of future ..... it was conceded in argument and is, i think, inevitable that under the second alternative, if a foreigner is injured in this country the courts will have to pay regard to the incidence of his foreign income tax, if any. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... thirdly, i have to recognise that not even the restrictions contended for here offer real hope to cs of proper isolation from the fallout of publicity at this trial; it is inevitable that those who know him will identify him and thus frustrate the purpose of the restriction. ..... he summarised his conclusions as follows (para 19): "first i recognise the primacy in a democratic society of the open reporting of public proceedings on grave criminal charges and the inevitable price that that involves in incursions on the privacy of individuals. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... . the identification of the policy is almost inevitably governed, at least to some extent, by one's notions of what the policy should be, and the policy so identified is then used to justify one's conclusion ..... . further, given that the question of whether section 6(3)(b) applies may often turn on a combination of factors, the relative weight to be accorded to each factor in a particular case is inevitably a somewhat subjective decision .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... the appellant now therefore complains that the judge should have insisted on directing the jury that, even on the defence case of accident, they should consider whether the appellant's conduct amounted to manslaughter, at least by gross negligence, and that the verdict is ..... guilty of manslaughter) 'inexorably to follow, the unlawful act must be such as all sober and reasonable people would inevitably recognise must subject the other person to, at least, the risk of some harm resulting therefrom, albeit not serious harm ..... that a failure to give the necessary direction must usually make the verdict unsafe since the appeal court will have no sufficient basis for concluding that a reasonable jury would inevitably have convicted the appellant of murder if they had been given the appropriate direction. 92. ..... been included, and the jury convicted the appellant of this offence, an appeal would almost inevitably have followed, and it is doubtful whether the conviction could have been regarded as safe ..... verdict which is raised by credible evidence, that is an irregularity which will ordinarily render the verdict unsafe, unless in all the circumstances the court of appeal concludes that the jury would inevitably have convicted even if the alternative verdict had been left. 11. ..... view of the court of appeal that it would have been unfair to the defendant to leave manslaughter to the jury and that a conviction for manslaughter would almost inevitably have led to an appeal which might have succeeded. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... found as a fact by the lord ordinary and their lordships of the first division having unanimously concurred in that finding, that it would be totally unrealistic to hold that the failure to provide a belt was the cause of the accident, the learned counsel for the appellant was driven to the argument that the evidence on which that finding was based was inadmissible or at any rate of no weight. ..... it was submitted that to hold that the appellant had failed to prove that the provision of a safety belt would have prevented the accident (and still more that the respondents had proved that it would not) was wrong on grounds of authority, the type of evidence required as compared with that called, the effect of the evidence before the lord ..... need mot consider whether this was right, because the main defence of both respondents is that if such belts had been available on the day of the accident mcwilliams would not have worn one and therefore any failure to provide a belt was not the cause of his death. ..... lord ordinary and the lord president (with whom lord carmont agreed) went on to hold that the appellant had failed to prove that the provision of a safety belt by the respondents would have prevented the accident, while lord guthrie, taking a different view of the onus of proof, held that the respondents had proved that it would not. ..... so it appears to me to be a natural, and indeed almost inevitable, inference that he would not have worn a belt on this occasion even if it had been available .....
Tag this Judgment!