Performance Cars Ltd v Abraham

A tortfeasor is liable only for loss caused by that tort. Where property already requires a particular repair because of earlier damage, a later tortfeasor whose wrongdoing does not create any additional need for that repair is not liable for its cost.

The earlier damage is not a merely collateral matter. The question is whether the later wrong imposed an additional burden on the claimant. An unsatisfied judgment against the earlier wrongdoer does not alter that causal analysis.

The defendant admitted responsibility for a collision with the claimant company's Rolls-Royce. Damage to its wing would ordinarily have required the whole lower part of the vehicle to be resprayed, at a cost of £75, to maintain a uniform colour.

However, an earlier collision had already damaged the rear of the same vehicle and had independently made the same respraying necessary. The company had obtained, but was unlikely to enforce, a default judgment against the earlier wrongdoer which included that cost.

Sir Shirley Worthington-Evans, sitting at Brentford County Court, awarded damages including £75 for respraying. The defendant appealed on the question whether the second collision imposed any additional respraying loss.

1. Appeal allowed unanimously. The Court substituted judgment for £35 10s in place of the County Court judgment for £110 15s. The £75 respraying item was irrecoverable from the defendant.

2. The Master of the Rolls held that the need to respray did not result from the defendant's wrongdoing. When he struck the vehicle, it was already in a condition requiring the whole lower body to be resprayed. The fact that the earlier judgment was unsatisfied was unfortunate but irrelevant.

3. The claimant's rights against the earlier wrongdoer were not a merely collateral benefit of the kind considered in Shearman v Folland [1950] 2 King's Bench 43. The existing physical damage directly affected the condition and value of the car which the defendant damaged.

4. The Master of the Rolls treated the reasoning in Carslogie Steamship Co Ltd v Royal Norwegian Government [1952] Appeal Cases 292 as applicable by analogy. There was no relevant distinction in principle between a claim for dry-dock charges or delay which would have been incurred in any event and the cost of repainting that was already necessary.

5. Harman LJ agreed that the car was already damaged and reduced in value to the relevant extent. Donovan LJ expressed the same conclusion: the second collision imposed no extra respraying burden on the company.

• Court of Appeal — unanimously allowed the defendant's appeal and substituted judgment for £35 10s.
• Brentford County Court — Sir Shirley Worthington-Evans awarded the claimant company £110 15s, including £75 for respraying.