Cother v RMC Group Plc

An appellate court should not interfere with trial findings based on an assessment of the evidence where there is no real prospect of demonstrating error. Negligence may be established where accepted expert evidence shows that a practicable precaution would have assisted in preventing an accident. Causation need not be expressed in a separate passage if it is implicit in the judgment read as a whole and supported by the accepted evidence. In assessing loss of earnings for an accelerated medical condition, the court may compare the claimant’s actual position with the position that would have existed when similar symptoms would otherwise have caused incapacity.

The claimant sought permission to appeal from a Manchester County Court judgment following a personal injury trial. He had slipped and fallen while walking at his employer’s quarry during heavy snowfall. The Recorder found that the accident occurred on a car-park ramp, that the defendant had been negligent in failing to apply salt, and that the negligence caused or contributed to the accident. He awarded damages, including loss of earnings, and did not consider the alternative claim under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

The proposed grounds challenged the factual finding about the place of the accident, the finding of negligence, causation, and the assessment of damages.

1. Permission refused. The application was dismissed because none of the proposed grounds had a real prospect of success.
2. Finding of fact. The Recorder’s conclusion that the claimant fell on the ramp depended on his assessment of the evidence, particularly the claimant’s credibility. The evidence relied upon by the defendant had been addressed and rejected. There was no proper basis for appellate intervention.
3. Negligence. The accepted engineering evidence established that, although clearing the snow was impracticable, spreading salt on critical areas was practicable and would have assisted. The Recorder was therefore entitled to find that failing to take that measure breached the defendant’s common law duty of care. The Court of Appeal regarded the conclusion as adequately supported by the evidence.
4. Causation. Although the Recorder had not dealt with causation in a separate express passage, the judgment, read as a whole, clearly implied a finding that the failure to salt the ramp contributed to the accident. The accepted expert evidence supported that conclusion. Any want of fuller explanation did not create a realistic prospect of success.
5. Quantum. The Recorder was entitled to assess loss of earnings by considering the period by which the accident had accelerated the claimant’s disabling symptoms. The relevant counterfactual was when, absent the accident, similar symptoms would have developed and led to cessation of work, rather than merely the period for which the immediate symptoms were expected to persist.
6. Statutory duty. No ruling was required on the alternative statutory-duty claim under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Application for permission to appeal from the Manchester County Court was dismissed.
• Manchester County Court: Following a trial on 27 April 2001, Mr Recorder Howells QC found the defendant negligent and awarded damages. Judgment was handed down on 21 June 2001.