Stanley & Anor v Close (t/a Armthorpe Moto Parc)

On a renewed application for permission to appeal against liability, the Court of Appeal held that a challenge to detailed, evidence-based findings of fact must engage with the trial judge’s reasoning as a whole. A party cannot obtain permission by isolating an arithmetic estimate where the judge’s conclusion rested on probabilities, witness appraisal and the totality of the evidence. Where the judge was entitled to find that a marshal’s inattention caused the critical delay, and the conclusion fell within the proper range of factual findings, there was no real prospect of overturning the liability finding. The seriousness of the potential damages did not alter the permission question.

The defendant operated a landscaped dirt motorcycle track. Two users were injured after one rider stalled near a jump and a marshal failed to warn an approaching rider in time. His Honour Judge Platts found the defendant liable in the Sheffield District Registry in May 2009. Permission to appeal was refused on paper by Waller LJ. The defendant renewed the application, relying on a four-second timing estimate to argue that a warning was either unnecessary or incapable of preventing the collision. The issue was whether that challenge disclosed a real prospect of disturbing the trial judge’s factual findings.

1. Application refused. The proposed grounds did not disclose a real prospect of successfully overturning the foundational findings of fact on which liability rested.
2. The trial judge’s primary factual findings were evidence-based and were not disputed. The challenge therefore had to address the judge’s evaluation of those facts and his conclusions. An appellate argument based on a four-second calculation did not do so, because the judge had not decided the case by applying that calculation mechanically.
3. The judge’s account was a narrative finding based on the arithmetic evidence, his assessment of the witnesses and the totality of the evidence. He was entitled to find that the marshal probably lowered the yellow flag after the rider moved off, looked towards the approaching motorcycles, failed to check whether the earlier rider had cleared the table top, and realised the danger only when it was too late to act.
4. The timing evidence did not undermine that conclusion. The judge’s findings placed the marshal’s inattention within a period in which the accident could still have been avoided. His conclusions were within the proper range open to him. The Court of Appeal’s concern at the permission stage was the prospect of upsetting those factual findings, not the possible quantum of damages.

The application for permission to appeal was accordingly refused.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 28 October 2009, Lord Justice Sedley refused the renewed application for permission to appeal.
2. Sheffield District Registry: In May 2009, His Honour Judge Platts found the defendant liable to the two injured motorcycle-track users.
3. Paper application: Waller LJ had previously refused permission, concluding that the case turned on findings of fact and that there was no reasonable prospect of reversing them.