Ryan v Prescott-Thomas Ltd

In a personal injury claim, the claimant must prove the material facts of the accident on the balance of probabilities. The court may draw common-sense inferences from accepted evidence, but must avoid speculation. Where the pleaded accident is not proved, the claim fails even though the claimant may have suffered some injury at work. The court must determine the issue actually raised by the pleadings and preliminary order, rather than decide a wider question unnecessarily.

The claimant sought damages for an alleged workplace accident while employed by the defendant. He said that, while lifting a 25-kilogram sack of potatoes into a lorry, he suffered sudden back pain and incontinence. The defendant accepted that a breach of duty would follow if those facts were proved, but denied that the accident occurred as alleged.

A preliminary issue required the court to decide whether the claimant had proved the circumstances pleaded. The evidence included conflicting accounts from the claimant, the defendant’s employees, a friend and the claimant’s partner, together with contemporaneous medical records.

1. Burden and scope of inquiry. The claimant bore the burden of proving, on the balance of probabilities, the material facts pleaded in support of the alleged accident. The court could draw common-sense inferences from evidence it accepted, but was not entitled to speculate. The issue was whether the claimant had proved that his symptoms began while lifting the sack of potatoes.
2. Assessment of the evidence. The defendant’s evidence established that the claimant could possibly have handled a bulk load, so the pleaded account was not impossible. That possibility did not establish that it occurred. The court placed substantial weight on the claimant’s failure to give a consistent account to the defendant’s employees, his friend and medical practitioners, and on the contemporaneous records referring to lifting objects or boxes rather than a sack of potatoes.
3. Findings. The claimant had sustained some injury while working and probably experienced some incontinence. However, the court found that he was not lifting a sack of potatoes when the symptoms began. The later specific account was more probably than not developed after he learned that his employment had been filled and consulted solicitors.
4. Disposition. The claimant had not proved the facts pleaded in paragraphs 3 and 5 of the Particulars of Claim. Judgment was therefore entered for the defendant, subject to consequential applications.