The claimant’s criminal conduct

Joyce v O’Brien [2012] EWHC 1324 (QB), a decision of Cooke J, follows hard on the heels of the decision of the Court of Appeal in Delaney v Pickett and Another [2011] EWCA Civ 1532 in discussing the circumstances in which the victim of a road traffic accident is precluded from recovering from the negligent driver (and his insurers) when the claimant was himself guilty of criminality leading up to the accident. The decision of Cooke J contains a very useful summary of the authorities to date and of the basis upon which recovery may be denied.

Joyce: the facts

At about 13.25 on 21 April 2009 the claimant suffered severe injuries in a motor vehicle accident just outside Croydon. The precise circumstances in which the injuries were incurred were disputed, but Cooke J found as a fact that the circumstances were as follows. The claimant and defendant were respectively nephew and uncle who on occasion worked together in gardening or labouring work. The parties had together stolen some extending ladders and loaded them into the defendant’s Ford Transit van. The ladders were too long to fit inside the van with the doors closed, and so the back rear door was left open with the ladders protruding. The claimant stood on the rear foot plate of the van, holding onto the van with his left hand and the ladders with his right hand. As the van negotiated, at some speed, a sharp left turn at a road junction, the claimant lost his grip and fell off. The defendant subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving, in that although he was not exceeding the speed limit he was driving at a speed which was unsafe in the circumstances.