Liability for highway layout

Thompson (Fiona) v Hampshire County Council [2004] EWCA Civ 1016; TLR 14 October

The claimant had been making her way along the verge of a highway via a narrow beaten earth path when she strayed from the path, perhaps by no more than a step, and fell into a ditch beside the track just where it emerged from a culvert. She broke her ankle. The path had been made by the visitors to the campsite to which the path led and had been in use for a number of years. The judge found that the path was safe for those who used it, and kept to it and that s41 of the Highways Act 1980 was not directed to avoiding the risk of harm that could be created where pedestrians walked to the side of the path. The claimant submitted that the fault of the highway authority lay in the unsafe juxtaposition of path and ditch such that one step outside the path could, as in her case, have serious consequences.