Bateman v East Midlands Motor

A bus driver is not generally required to wait until every passenger has taken a seat before moving away. The duty is to take reasonable steps for passenger safety. Special precautions may be required where a passenger presents a particular risk, such as age, infirmity, luggage or other vulnerability. A passenger’s movement at the driver’s request does not itself create an exceptional risk. On an appeal involving findings of fact, the appellate court may scrutinise the inferences drawn where the trial judge applied the wrong legal test or failed to address a material evidential difficulty.

A schoolgirl was injured when she was thrown to the floor of a bus during an emergency stop while walking towards the front at the driver’s request. The district judge found the driver negligent and awarded damages. The county court judge allowed the driver’s appeal, holding that the correct question was whether he had acted as a reasonably competent driver and that the evidence did not establish distraction or negligent braking.

The claimant sought permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. The central issues were whether the driver should have waited for her to sit down, whether the circumstances created an exceptional passenger-safety risk, and whether the evidence justified the findings of negligence.

1. Application refused. The Court of Appeal agreed with the county court judge that the action should be dismissed.
2. The starting point was Fletcher v United Counties Omnibus Co [1997] PIQR 154. Bus drivers cannot generally be expected to wait until all boarding passengers are seated. Their duty is satisfied by taking reasonable steps for passenger safety, including providing appropriate safety supports. Special measures may be required where a particular risk exists.
3. The suggested exception did not apply. The claimant was an able-bodied 15-year-old. The fact that the driver had asked her to move seats and thereby placed her in a temporary position of vulnerability did not, on these facts, require him to remain stationary.
4. The evidence did not establish that the driver was distracted by his unfamiliarity with the route or by asking passengers for directions. He was travelling straight along the major road, there was no criticism of his driving before the braking, and there was no evidence that his attention had left the road.
5. The district judge had applied the wrong test by asking whether an emergency stop was necessary in the manner adopted, rather than whether the driver had acted to the standard of a reasonably competent driver. He also failed to address the material inconsistency between the claimant’s witness’s earlier attribution of responsibility to the car and her later account, or to explain why her changed account was preferred to the driver’s consistent evidence.
6. Under section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999, the case raised no important point of principle or practice and disclosed no other compelling reason for a further appeal.

• County Court: The county court judge allowed the appeal from the district judge and dismissed the claimant’s action.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The Court agreed with the county court judge and refused permission to appeal.