Perry v Kendricks Transport Ltd

Liability in negligence requires precautions against risks that were reasonably foreseeable. Under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher, an occupier may also be strictly liable for an escape of a dangerous thing, but the act-of-stranger exception applies where the escape is caused by someone outside the occupier’s control. The exception is not limited to adults or consciously deliberate acts. It does not protect an occupier whose own negligent handling makes the particular intervention a reasonable and probable consequence. General knowledge that children enter or play on premises is insufficient without evidence that the specific interference was reasonably foreseeable.

The claimant, a ten-year-old child, was severely burned when a lighted match ignited petrol vapour in a coach parked on the defendants’ vehicle park. The petrol cap had first been removed. The claim was pleaded in negligence on the basis of a licence, although the claimant had not reached the defendants’ land, and alternatively under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher. Mr Justice Lynskey, sitting at Birmingham Assizes, found no negligence and gave judgment for the defendants. The appeal concerned the adequacy of the defendants’ precautions, the possible application of strict liability to the coach and vapour, and whether the acts of the boys were acts of strangers over whom the occupier had no control.

The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal with costs against the next friend. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.

1. Negligence. The court agreed with Mr Justice Lynskey that the defendants had done what could reasonably be expected. They had emptied the tank, inspected the vehicles, and removed children when they were seen on the vehicle park. The removal of the cap and insertion of a lighted match were separate acts. There was no evidence that either particular act was reasonably foreseeable. General knowledge that children played or passed through the area did not require precautions against those acts.
2. Strict liability. Singleton LJ proceeded on the assumptions that personal injury could found a claim under Rylands v Fletcher and that a coach which had contained petrol was within the rule. Jenkins LJ accepted that the coach, containing inflammable petrol vapour, was a dangerous thing for this purpose. Parker LJ stated that the Court was bound by Musgrove v Pandelis 1919(2) King's Bench 43 to approach the facts on that basis. He noted that Read v Lyons & Company Ltd 1947 Appeal Cases 157 had left the question of personal injury open.
3. Act of stranger. The rule in Rylands v Fletcher 1 Exchequer Cases 265 is subject to the established exception for an escape caused by a stranger outside the occupier’s control. The principle was supported by Box v Jubb 4 Exchequer Division 76 and Rickards v Lothian 1913 Appeal Cases 263. A child may be a stranger. The exception is not confined to acts involving conscious volition. It may fail where the occupier should reasonably have anticipated the particular kind of interference and guarded against it, but that would ordinarily amount to negligence. On the evidence, the boys’ acts were not foreseeable and the exception applied.

1. Court of Appeal. The appeal from the judgment below was dismissed with costs.
2. Mr Justice Lynskey at Birmingham Assizes. On 26 July 1955, judgment was given for the defendants after the court found no negligence and rejected the alternative strict-liability claim.