Goodes v East Sussex County Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 21 December 1999 |
| Date | 21 December 1999 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Morritt, Lord Justice Aldous and Lord Justice Hutchison
Highways - duty of care by authority - failure to maintain highway ice-free
A highway authority, by failing to act expeditiously to prevent ice from forming on the surface of a road, were in breach of their statutory duty to maintain it.
The Court of Appeal so held by a majority (Lord Justice Aldous dissenting) in a reserved judgment allowing an appeal by the plaintiff, Geoffrey Graham Goodes, from a decision of Judge Hargrove, QC, sitting as a judge of the Queen's Bench Division, in favour of the defendants, East Sussex County Council.
Mr J G R Ross and Mr Richard Carron for Mr Goodes; Mr Christopher Wilson-Smith, QC and Mr John Stevenson for the defendants.
LORD JUSTICE HUTCHISON said that on November 14, 1991, at about 7.10am, the plaintiff was driving his motor car along the A267 road between Five Ashes and Mayfield in Sussex when, as he was in the process of overtaking other vehicles on a straight stretch of road at a place known as Wellbrook Hill, his vehicle skidded on ice on the road surface and left the road.
The plaintiff, who sustained injuries of the utmost severity in the accident, brought proceedings against the defendants, the highway authority responsible for the repair and maintenance of the road, alleging that they were responsible by reason of their failure to maintain the road by keeping it free from ice.
The central issue before the judge, who said that he could find no want of care in the plaintiff's driving, was whether the defendants had been shown to be in breach of their statutory duty to maintain the road.
That duty was imposed by section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 which provided:
"(1) The authority who are for the time being the highway authority for a highway maintainable at the public expense are under a duty . . . to maintain the highway."
Section 239 of the 1980 Act provided:
"Maintenance includes repair and 'maintain' and 'maintainable' are to be construed accordingly;. . ."
Section 58(1) of the Act provided that in an action for damages arising out of the authority's failure to maintain:
". . . it is a defence . . . to prove that the authority had taken such care as in all the circumstances was reasonably required to secure that the part of the highway to which the action relates was not dangerous for traffic."
The defendants...
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