Great Western Coffee Shop

Unbelievable.....https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/20/woman-who-injured-brain-tram-surfing-sues-rail-company-for-485000-8058933/

Outrageous, and in my view totally her own fault.

Just how are those modifications to the external cabling between carriages on the IET fleet coming?

A tale of Two Blithering Idiots, 1the reckless person who tram surfed.
And 2 the idiot who thought it fit to award the damages.

Not of course worthy of an actual Darwin award since they failed to "improve the human gene pool, by exiting it" but worthy of an honourable mention perhaps.

The 'idiot' in question is a High Court Judge, whose job it is to apply the law however absurd it might seem to someone whose only knowledge of the case is a newspaper article. It is of course possible that the judge's personal opinion of the case differs from his legal judgement; judges are presumably chosen in part because they are good at that kind of thing.

 

UK high court judges, do to an extent, actually MAKE the law.
UK law is not always as clear as it might be, especially when dealing with incidents involving new inventions, or processes.

Judges make decisions largely based on legal precedents, or similar previous cases.

In cases like this one there will be relatively few similar precedents and the judge must therefore decide on the basis of very general laws and precedents that are perhaps not directly relevant.

I am not aware of any UK legislation that says "if you suffer injury from riding on the outside of a tram, this is your fault"
Neither am I aware of any specific law that entitles one to a pay out for injuries received when so doing.

There IS a general requirement under health and safety law to take "reasonable care" to prevent injury or worse to others. Legal arguments over what is reasonable can be prolonged.

In this case I feel that the judge has made the wrong decision.
And by setting a LEGAL PRECEDENT the judge has in effect slightly changed the law by increasing the chances of similar claims succeeding in future.
The legal representatives of future claimants will refer to this case.

Out of interest does the Irish system work the same way?

In general, yes. There are no doubt differences in detail but in general the legal systems are similar.
This is true of most developed countries.

Whilst major legislation is passed by parliament, this can not take account of every single possibility.
It is up to senior judges to decide on the detailed application of legislation, especially under circumstances not directly covered by primary legislation.
This is known as "case law" and gradually evolves.

The people who started the Darwin awards were on the radio being interviewed. The bloke was talking about some of the award winners. The interviewer interrupted him when he mentioned the children of an award winner. "Doesn't the fact that the bloke had children make him ineligible for the award? He's already infected the gene pool after all." Bloke reluctantly agreed that this was the case.

Not reading all the words.  From looking at the various (poor) press reports, it appears that the case was settled, rather than being tried.  In other words, the defendant made an offer and the claimant accepted it.  Not a case where the judge made a decision, one way or the other.

Good point - the Irish Times (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/woman-injured-tram-surfing-on-luas-awarded-550-000-1.3669184) article states clearly that Mr Justice Cross approved the settlement.

Hm.

The legal system in Ireland does indeed bear many similarities to those of the UK, especially that of England and Wales. From the time of Cromwell to 1922, it was part of the same system, with the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords as the ultimate appellate court. Laws enacted during that time, and not repealed, remain in force, and decisions made on Irish cases during that period could set precedents binding in English cases even today. The two systems went their separate ways after 1922, with the Irish Supreme Court becoming the last chance saloon with the adoption of the constitution in 1937. BUT the High Court does not make law on either side of the sea.

Decisions made by the High Court are at least theoretically binding on itself. So any subsequent case involving similar facts should end with the same result. In practice, though, another High Court judge could "distinguish" his case by finding some small difference, enough to make the earlier verdict not binding on the case they have.

Decisions made by the Court of Appeal bind itself and all lower courts. It could "make" law by ruling in a later case, or even this one if someone appeals, that personal injury law does not apply if the tram is late, for instance (it wouldn't). Subsequent High Court cases would have to be decided with this in mind.

Until, that is, someone takes a case to the Supreme Court. What it says, except in the very limited instances where the European Courts could intervene, is the final answer, and will apply to all cases at every level.

It is important to note that the Courts can only "make law" by interpretation of existing law. They are good at it, though, and have been known to make judgments that effectively render the written law useless. If the government of the day doesn't like that, their only option is to pass a new law.

The tram operator could appeal. The old legal principle of volenti non fit injuria faded from sight with the move away from using Latin in court, but if it's your own fault then you take the consequences. The court in this case may have found that the company had done or failed to do something that would have prevented the incident, though, so an appeal could cost even more. They may have taken steps to avoid a repetition, so may leave it lie.

Stupid girl.

But it was an out of court settlement - and there's no appeal against that, apart from the (very unusual) possibility of alleging the complainant lied and you would never otherwise have "voluntarily" paid them.

Quite so.  The claimant (still called the plaintiff in Ireland I think) was aged 13 at the time of the accident and it appears that she suffered a brain injury.  Those can be really expensive if there's full liability.

Contributory negligence was a factor but that is judged by reference to the age of the claimant.  Thus, there will almost never be a finding contributory negligence against a child aged 10 or under.  This claimant was 13 at the time of the accident.  You can't be 100% contributorily negligent because that would mean that the defendant wasn't at fault.

The first question is always "Is the defendant liable?".  The second question is "Was the claimant also negligent?"

Veolia's insurers obviously took a view.  There was evidence of persistent tram surfing and the argument for the claimant would have been that this was an attraction and a common practice and that Veolia were aware of it and had not taken reasonable steps to prevent or inhibit it.

The principle of volenti still holds good even if not pronounced in Latin.  But it's to be distinguished from contributory negligence since it amounts to a complete defence.  A good example is consenting to surgery.  Were it not for the consent, the operation would be an actionable assault.  The consent means that there is no claim, unless the procedure was negligently carried out.

Quite.

So to be clear: The judge was not an idiot, and the girl was not stupid. This is the Great Western Passengers' Forum, not the Daily Express.

Pretty much the long and short of the matter!

Obiter, it may have been an out-of-court settlement, saving the often enormous legal fees, but it is still an order of the court. The judge approved it, meaning he was satisfied that the injured party hadn't been short changed, and the company hadn't been overcharged.