A Selection of Cases on the Law of Torts

by Unknown

The facts of the case are very short. The respondent in the evening of the 18th of July, 1872, took a third-class ticket from Moorgate Street to Westbourne Park, and got into a third-class compartment; the compartment was gradually filled up, and when it left King’s Cross all the seats were occupied. At Gower Street Station three persons got in and were obliged to stand up. There was no evidence to show that the attention of the company’s servants was drawn to the fact of an extra number being in the compartment; but there was evidence that the respondent remonstrated at their getting in with the persons so getting in, and a witness who travelled in the same compartment stated that he did not see a guard or porter at Gower Street.

At Portland Road, the next station, the three extra passengers still remained standing up in the compartment. The door of the compartment was opened and then shut; but there was no evidence to show by whom either act was done. Just as the train was starting from Portland Road there was a rush, and the door of the compartment was opened a second time by persons trying to get in. The respondent, who had up to this time kept his seat, partly rose and held up his hand to prevent any more passengers coming in. After the train had moved, a porter pushed away the people who were trying to get in, and slammed the door to, just as the train was entering the tunnel. At that very moment the respondent, by the motion of the train, fell forward and put his hand upon one of the hinges of the carriage door to save himself, and at that moment, by the door being slammed to, the respondent’s thumb was caught and injured.

The case as to negligence having been left to the jury, the jury found a verdict for the respondent with £50 damages. There was not, at your lordships’ bar, any serious controversy as to the principles applicable to a case of this description. The judge has a certain duty to discharge, and the jurors have another and a different duty. The judge has to say whether any facts have been established by evidence from which negligence may be reasonably inferred; the jurors have to say whether, from those facts, when submitted to them, negligence ought to be inferred. It is, in my opinion, of the greatest importance in the administration of justice that these separate functions should be maintained, and should be maintained distinct. It would be a serious inroad on the province of the jury, if, in a case where there are facts from which negligence may reasonably be inferred, the judge were to withdraw the case from the jury upon the ground that, in his opinion, negligence ought not to be inferred; and it would, on the other hand, place in the hands of the jurors a power which might be exercised in the most arbitrary manner, if they were at liberty to hold that negligence might be inferred from any state of facts whatever. To take the instance of actions against railway companies: a company might be unpopular, unpunctual, and irregular in its service; badly equipped as to its staff; unaccommodating to the public; notorious, perhaps for accidents occurring on the line; and when an action was brought for the consequences of an accident, jurors, if left to themselves, might, upon evidence of general carelessness, find a verdict against the company in a case where the company was really blameless. It may be said that this would be set right by an application to the court in banc, on the ground that the verdict was against evidence; but it is to be observed that such an application, even if successful, would only result in a new trial; and on a second trial, and even on subsequent trials, the same thing might happen again.

In the present case I am bound to say that I do not find any evidence from which, in my opinion, negligence could reasonably be inferred. The negligence must in some way connect itself, or be connected by evidence, with the accident. It must be, if I might invent an expression founded upon a phrase in the civil law, incuria dans locum injuriae. In the present case there was no doubt negligence in the company’s servants, in allowing more passengers than the proper number to get in at the Gower Street Station; and it may also have been negligence if they saw these supernumerary passengers, or if they ought to have seen them, at Portland Road, not to have then removed them; but there is nothing, in my opinion, in this negligence which connects itself with the accident that took place. If, when the train was leaving Portland Road, the overcrowding had any effect on the movements of the respondent; if it had any effect on the particular portion of the carriage where he was sitting, if it made him less a master of his actions when he stood up or when he fell forward, this ought to have been made matter of evidence; but no evidence of the kind was given.

As regards what took place at Portland Road, I am equally unable to see any evidence of negligence connected with the accident, or indeed of any negligence whatever. The officials cannot, in my opinion, be held bound to prevent intending passengers on the platform opening a carriage door with a view of looking or getting into the carriage. They are bound to have a staff which would be able to prevent such persons getting in where the carriage was already full, and this staff they had, for the case finds that the porter pushed away the persons who were attempting to get in. So also with regard to shutting the door; these persons had opened the door, and thereupon it was not only proper but necessary that the door should be shut by the porter; and, as the train was on the point of passing into a tunnel, he could not shut it otherwise than quickly or in this sense violently....

Lord Blackburn:—

My Lords, I also am of opinion that in this case the judgment should be reversed, and a nonsuit entered. On a trial by jury it is, I conceive, undoubted that the facts are for the jury, and the law for the judge. It is not, however, in many cases practicable completely to sever the law from the facts.

But I think it has always been considered a question of law to be determined by the judge, subject, of course, to review whether there is evidence which, if it is believed, and the counter-evidence, if any, not believed, would establish the facts in controversy. It is for the jury to say whether and how far the evidence is to be believed. And if the facts, as to which evidence is given, are such that from them a farther inference of fact may legitimately be drawn, it is for the jury to say whether that inference is to be drawn or not. But it is for the judge to determine, subject to review, as a matter of law whether from those facts that farther inference may legitimately be drawn.

My Lords, in delivering the considered judgment of the Exchequer Chamber in Ryder v. Wombwell, Law Rep. 4 Ex. 32, 38, Willes, J., says: “Such a question is one of mixed law and fact; in so far as it is a question of fact, it must be determined by a jury, subject no doubt to the control of the court, who may set aside the verdict, and submit the question to the decision of another jury; but there is in every case a preliminary question, which is one of law, viz., whether there is any evidence on which the jury could properly find the verdict for the party on whom the onus of proof lies. If there is not, the judge ought to withdraw the question from the jury, and direct a nonsuit if the onus is on the plaintiff, or direct a verdict for the plaintiff if the onus is on the defendant. It was formerly considered necessary in all cases to leave the question to the jury, if there was any evidence, even a scintilla, in support of the case; but it is now settled that the question for the judge (subject, of course, to review), is, as is stated by Maule, J., in Jewell v. Parr, 13 C. B. 909, 916, ‘not whether there is literally no evidence, but whether there is none that ought reasonably to satisfy the jury that the fact sought to be proved is established.’”

He afterwards observes, Law Rep. 4 Ex. 42, very truly in my opinion, “There is no doubt a possibility in all cases where the judges have to determine whether there is evidence on which the jury may reasonably find a fact, that the judges may differ in opinion, and it is possible that the majority may be wrong. Indeed, whenever a decision of the court below on such a point is reversed, the majority must have been so either in the court above or the court below. This is an infirmity which must affect all tribunals.”