Maye v Craigavon Borough Council
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1998 |
| Date | 01 January 1998 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Northern Ireland) |
- Breach of statutory duty - Litter - Duty to keep roads in district clean and free of litter - Whether duty imposed for protection of limited class - Whether breach giving rise to private right of action -Careless performance of statutory duty - Plaintiff sustaining injury on broken glass in defendant council's district - Whether common law duty existed to discharge statutory duty non-negligently - Whether sufficiently proximate relationship existed between council and plaintiff - Whether council liable for damage to plaintiff caused by careless performance of statutory duty - Litter (Northern Ireland) Order, 1994 (S.I. No. 1896), art. 7.
The plaintiff suffered a serious injury to his hand on 28 March, 1985, when he tripped on a bottle as he returned home from school through an underpass. He fell and his outstretched left hand came in contact with broken glass which littered the area. The plaintiff brought an action against the council alleging negligent discharge of its statutory duty under art. 7(1) of the Litter (Northern Ireland) Order, 1994, to keep the roads in its district clean and free from litter. In the course of that action the council applied for a direction that the plaintiff had failed to raise a prima facie case contending, inter alia: (i) that according to the express terms of art. 7(6) nothing in art. 7 was to operate as to confer on any person a right of action in tort against the local authority for failing to carry out the statutory duty imposed on it under art. 7; and (ii) that the plaintiff could not rely on a claim that there had been a negligent discharge of the statutory obligation to clean the road or clear it of litter since it was necessary to show that the circumstances in which a plaintiff had sustained injury were such as to raise a duty of care at common law before an alleged careless exercise of a statutory power or duty gave rise to a cause of action. Held - (1) The express terms of art. 7(6) were inconsistent with the creation of breach of statutory duty simpliciter where all that would be required to be shown was the statutory duty and a breach of that duty causing damage to the plaintiff. Moreover, a breach of statutory duty would not give rise to any private law cause of action unless it could be shown that the statutory duty had been imposed for the protection of a limited class of the public and that Parliament had intended to confer on members of that class a...
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Patrick McKnight v Department for Regional Development and M and P Bradley
...actionable negligence on their part. He relied upon the decision of Kerr J (as he then was) in Maye (a minor) v Craigavon Borough Council [1998] NI 103. In Maye the street lighting decisions of the Court of Appeal in Farrell v Northern Ireland Electricity Service [1977] NI 39, and Chambers ......