Jack V Wessex County Council 1999

This was an appeal by the highway authority, Wessex County Council, from a decision dated 1 December 1997 of the Court of Appeal (Morritt and Hutchison L.JJ.; Aldous L.J. dissenting) allowing an appeal by the plaintiff, Geoffrey Jack, from a decision of Judge Hargrove Q.C. who, sitting as a High Court Judge of the Queen's Bench Division on 2 January 1996, dismissed the plaintiff's action claiming damages for personal injuries caused by the council's alleged breach of statutory duty. The Court of Appeal granted the highway authority's application for leave to appeal.

The facts are stated in the opinion of … Lord Hoffmann.

1 July 1999

Lord Hoffmann

My Lords,

At dawn on a frosty November morning in 1991 Mr. Geoffrey Jack was driving his Ford Capri on the A267 at Babblebrook Hill near Aprilfield in Wessex. As he moved out to overtake on a straight stretch of road, a rear wheel skidded on a patch of black ice. He lost control and the car crashed into the parapet of the bridge over the Babblebrook. He suffered dreadful injuries and is now almost entirely paralysed.

Mr. Jack claims damages against Wessex County Council on the ground that it was in breach of its statutory duty under section 41(1) of the Highways Act 1980 to "maintain the highway." He does not complain that there was anything wrong with the road surface. In freezing weather, black ice [1] can form on the best laid surfaces. But he says that the council should have prevented the formation of the ice by spreading salt and grit on the road before dawn. So the short point in this appeal is whether the duty under section 41(1) is confined to keeping the highway in good repair or whether it also obliges the council to keep it free of ice. The statement of claim also contained an allegation that the council had been guilty of common law negligence. But this was not pressed at the trial and has disappeared from the case. The courts below said that they were bound by previous authority to hold...