Wilkin-Shaw v Fuller & Anor

A high standard of navigational skill is reasonably expected of adults training 14-year-old participants during an expedition on Dartmoor. Serious elementary navigational errors may therefore amount to negligence. Breach alone does not establish liability. Causation must be proved on the evidence, and a finding that the defendant’s presence would probably have prevented the loss cannot rest on speculation. An independent intervention by a third party may also break the chain of causation where it was not reasonably foreseeable that participants would follow unsafe advice contrary to sound instructions. The appeal was dismissed, although the Court of Appeal found the absent checkpoint supervisor negligent.

Charlotte Shaw drowned during school training for the Ten Tors expedition. Her administratrix claimed damages against her teacher and the school. The High Court dismissed the claim, rejecting allegations concerning the training, remote supervision, the failure to man the Watern Tor checkpoint, and telephone advice given to the group: [2012] EWHC 1777 (QB).

On appeal, the appellant advanced a narrower case based on the personal negligence of Miss Timms, who had failed to reach the checkpoint, and the school’s vicarious liability for that failure. The central issues were whether Miss Timms was negligent and whether her absence caused the drowning.

1. Disposition. Pill LJ dismissed the appeal. Moore-Bick LJ and Black LJ agreed.
2. Negligence. Although the case on appeal differed from the case determined at trial, the court was prepared to consider it because the issue had been kept open at trial and Miss Timms’s conduct had been fully explored. The conditions required a high standard of navigational skill from those training 14-year-old participants on Dartmoor. Miss Timms had made serious and elementary navigational errors, gave no satisfactory explanation for them, and was negligent.
3. Causation. The finding of negligence did not establish liability. The evidence did not show that Miss Timms’s presence at Watern Tor would probably have produced a different result. It would have been proper for her to check the group’s fitness and send them onwards. The evidence did not establish that she would have accompanied them or given route advice different from that already provided by the first respondent. A finding that her presence would have prevented the second attempt to cross the Walla Brook would therefore be excessively speculative.
4. Intervening event. In any event, even if Miss Timms had remained at the checkpoint, the intervention of Mr Wills, an apparently authoritative third party, would have broken the chain of causation. It was not reasonably foreseeable that the group would disobey the first respondent’s sound instructions, particularly when similar advice had been given by an experienced mountain leader. The later loss of control involving the rucksack was not argued to constitute a separate break in the chain.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): appeal dismissed.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division: Owen J dismissed the damages claim: [2012] EWHC 1777 (QB).