ON THIS DAY in 2011, the High Court of Australia delivered Miller v Miller [2011] HCA 9 (7 April 2011).
A joint illegal enterprise (eg joyride) negates a duty of care (driver to passenger) thereby creating a defence of illegality on the part of the driver/insurer: see Gala v Preston [1991] HCA 18. However, in Miller v Miller the High Court held that the plaintiff (injured passenger) was owed a duty of care because she withdrew from the enterprise by asking to be let out of the car and there were no reasonable steps available to her to prevent the continuation of the offence.
ON THIS DAY in 1977, the England and Wales Court of Appeal delivered Miller v Jackson [1977] EWCA Civ 6 (06 April 1977). A cricket club was sued in negligence and nuisance caused by cricket balls landing on a neighbour’s property. Whilst ordering damages, the court refused to grant an injunction to cease the action or further action as the game of cricket itself was considered to be in the public interest.
Lord Denning began with the following:
“In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last seventy years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club-house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings after work they practice while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70 years a Judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there anymore, lie has issued an injunction to stop them. He has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket. This newcomer has built, or has had built for him, a house on the edge of the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle grazed. The animals did not mind the cricket. But now this adjoining field has been turned into a housing estate. The newcomer bought one of the houses on the edge of the cricket ground. No doubt the open space was a selling point. Now he complains that, when a batsman hits a six, the ball has been known to land in his garden or on or near his house. His wife has got so upset about it that they always go out at weekends. They do not go into the garden when cricket is being played. They say that this is intolerable. So they asked the Judge to stop the cricket being played. And the Judge, I am sorry to say, feels that the cricket must be stopped: with the consequences, I suppose, that the Lintz cricket-club will disappear. The cricket ground will be turned to some other use. I expect for more houses or a factory. The young men will turn to other things instead of cricket. The whole village will be much the poorer. And all this because of a newcomer who has just bought a house there next to the cricket ground.”
“In questions of this sort, where direct proof is not available, it is enough if the circumstances appearing in evidence give rise to a reasonable and definite inference: they must do more than give rise to conflicting inferences of equal degrees of probability so that the choice between them is mere matter of conjecture: see per Lord Robson, Richard Evans & Co. Ltd. v. Astley (1911) AC 674, at p 687. But if circumstances are proved in which it is reasonable to find a balance of probabilities in favour of the conclusion sought then, though the conclusion may fall short of certainty, it is not to be regarded as a mere conjecture or surmise: cf. per Lord Loreburn (1911) AC, at p 678″. (at p358)”
ON THIS DAY IN 2004, the NSW Court of Appeal delivered Harvey & 1 Ors v PD [2004] NSWCA 97. A doctor performing STD tests upon a couple has a duty before the tests are performed to obtain the couple’s consent to share the results.
ON THIS DAY IN 1985, the High Court of Australia delivered R v Crabbe [1985] HCA 22; (1985) 156 CLR 464 (26 March 1985). Douglas Crabbe killed five people and injured many more when he drove a Mack truck into a bar at Uluru after being refused service of alcohol. He was tried for murder on the grounds of recklessness as opposed to intent.
“…a person who, without lawful justification or excuse, does an act knowing that it is probable that death or grievous bodily harm will result, is guilty of murder if death in fact results.”
ON THIS DAY IN 1994, the High Court of Australia delivered Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd [1994] HCA 13; (1994) 179 CLR 520; (1994) Aust Torts Reports 81-264; (1994) 120 ALR 42; (1994) 68 ALJR 331 (24 March 1994). The rule in Rylands v Fletcher was abolished so that the determination of liability for harm caused by dangerous substances or activities on premises comes under the principles of negligence rather than strict liability.
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