Slip, Trip, Fall injury compensation claim due to disrepair of public road, park, supermarkets, and other places:



If you sustain an injury, damages or loss, you may claim compensation: most claims against public authorities are brought in negligence rather than for breach of statutory duty. This is for a worthy reason. The majority of obligations imposed on public authorities under the statute are not actionable by individuals in private law actions. They give rise to public law duties for which the remedy is a public law action in judicial review. So in X v Bedfordshire County Council [1995] 2 AC 633 at 731, Lord Browne-Wilkinson said: The basic proposition is that in the typical case a breach of statutory duty does no, give rise to any private law cause of action.

There are, nevertheless, some statutory provisions breach of which gives rise to private law claims. The difficulty is in assessing which ones. A well-known example is s.41 of the Highways Act 1980, which permits users of the road to sue for a failure to repair the road. Here, it is made express by statute that an action for damages will stand against the highway authority for disrepair or non-repair.

It is imperative at the beginning to understand what is meant by a claim for breach of statutory duty. In X v Bedfordshire County Council [1995] 2 AC 633 at 731 , Lord Browne-Wilkinson described such a claim as one for breach of statutory duty simpliciter. He continued: 'This category comprises those cases where the statement of claim alleges simply (a) the statutory duty, (b) a breach of that duty, causing (c) damage to the plaintiff. The cause of action depends neither on proof of any breach of the plaintiffs' common law rights nor on any allegation of carelessness by the defendant.'

Lord Browne-Wilkinson made clear in X v Bedfordshire County Council [1995] 2 AC 633 at 732., there is no such thing as a distinct or free-standing claim for the careless performance of statutory duty. Either the claimant can establish a breach of statutory duty or that he has a common law claim in negligence.

It may be that the statutory duty is drafted as one to take reasonable care. In that case, the claimant would need to establish a lack of proper care to show there was a breach of statutory duty. But such a case still counts as one for breach of statutory duty because the requirement to take reasonable care was a part of the statutory duty. In addition, the Human Rights Act 1998 ('HRA 1998') provides a cause of action for individuals against public authorities for breach of the individual's Convention rights. The court then has a choice to award compensations. In most cases of personal injury or death at the hands of a public authority, there will be a suitable remedy in negligence or for breach of statutory duty. But there are several situations where the claimant will be left without any remedy at all unless he brings his claim under the HRA 1998.

For instance, in Michael v The Chief Constable of South Wales [2015] UKSC 2, where a former boyfriend murdered Ms Michael after the police had failed to respond in time to her call for help, the Supreme Court held that the police did not owe a duty of care to Ms Michael; hence her family had no claim in negligence. However, the Supreme Court also held that the defendant had arguably breached Ms Michael's ECHR rights and that this should be investigated at trial.

Claims under the HRA 1998 thus fulfil a valuable role in providing a remedy where none otherwise would exist. Given the number of barriers to a claim in negligence against a public authority, it is no surprise that the number of lawsuits against public authorities has risen.

Misfeasance in public office is a tort that involves alleging bad faith against a public officer. As bad faith is much harder to prove than negligence, it is perhaps not surprising that the tort has not often been employed in personal injury cases. Indeed, until Akenzua v Home Secretary [2003] 1 WLR 741. in 2002, there was no reported case in which the consequence of misfeasance had been personal injury or death. \

Nevertheless, the tort of misfeasance has some advantages over negligence actions, in particular:

(a) It is not necessary to establish a duty of care.

(b) It seems that policy controls on psychiatric injury claims by secondary victims do not apply.

(c) Exemplary damages can be claimed.

Accordingly, misfeasance should prove to be a valuable tort in a small number of personal injury actions where there is reason to think that injury has been caused by some particularly scheming and unconscionable activity on the part of a public authority's employee. In essence, the claim against a public authority is broader than the common understanding. It is crucial to seek legal advice before a claim brought against public authority.

For further details and to speak to a solicitor, please fill-up the form in one minute, and a solicitor will call you to discuss your concern.