Veronica Marie Smith v Alan Clarke

A vehicle owner owes a duty to take reasonable care to keep a vehicle and towing equipment safe and roadworthy for the use made of them. Where manufacturer’s instructions identify a serious risk from loose coupling bolts, reasonable care may require periodic torque testing; visual inspection and an MOT certificate may be insufficient. The owner remains responsible for considering whether the loads placed on a vehicle and trailer exceed the coupling’s safe capacity. An inference of negligence may shift the evidential burden to the defendant, but it does not reverse the legal burden of proof. The court must still decide breach on the balance of probabilities. A failure to attach a trailer breakaway cable to a separate fixing point was not negligent where the attachment used was consistent with available guidance and the towball itself was not expected to detach.

Two linked negligence claims arose from the detachment of a trailer being towed by the defendant’s horsebox on 19 June 2018. The trailer struck two men working beside a tractor and cultivator. Alvis Smith died and Dale Parson suffered very severe injuries.

The claimants alleged that the coupling bolts were fatigued and unsuitable for the loading previously imposed, and that the breakaway cable was inadequately attached. The defendant admitted that metal fatigue caused the bolts to fail, but denied breach, relying on the latent nature of the defects, the vehicle’s recent MOT and the attachment of the cable around the towball. The preliminary issue concerned liability only.

1. Liability. Judgment was entered for the claimants on the preliminary issue. The defendant was liable for the full consequences of the accident. Assessment of injury, loss and damage was left to a separate hearing if not agreed.
2. The admitted duty was to take reasonable care to ensure that a vehicle used on the public highway was roadworthy and not likely to cause injury. The claimants retained the legal burden of proving breach. The standard was that of the prudent and reasonable vehicle owner, taking account of the risk, potential seriousness of injury, purpose of the activity and practicability of precautions.
3. The agreed expert evidence established two possible causes of the bolt fatigue: insufficient tightening and historic overloading. The manufacturer’s instructions required the M16 bolts to be tightened to 240 Nm and checked initially after 500 miles and thereafter at 1,000-mile intervals. Reasonable care therefore required a system of periodic torque testing. The defendant had never carried out or instructed such testing, and was in breach. The failure to torque-test caused or contributed to the fatigue.
4. The coupling’s maximum safe D value was 17.2 kN. The defendant’s previous use of the horsebox with an Ifor Williams trailer and four ponies exceeded that limit on approximately five trips each year over many years. He had made no attempt to check the loads or the coupling’s capacity. That repeated overloading was negligent and caused or contributed to the bolt fatigue.
5. The recent MOT did not discharge the duty. The inspection was limited to visual checks, did not include torque testing and was outside the scope of the specific maintenance required. An inference of negligence could shift only the evidential burden, but the evidence independently established breach on the balance of probabilities.
6. The breakaway cable’s defects were not causative. Although its attachment around the towball was not best practice, it did not fall below the reasonable standard of care because the guidance contemplated detachment of the trailer coupling from the towball, not detachment of the towball itself.