R A Buckley investigates breaking the chain of causation
- When will an act of the claimant’s own choosing negate liability for a defendant’s breach of duty?
When will a defendant escape liability for negligence or other breach of duty on the ground that the actions of the claimant, in an endeavour to escape from a situation in which the defendant had placed him or her, ‘broke the chain of causation’ with the defendant’s original wrongful act? This question recently divided the Court of Appeal in Clay v TUI UK Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1177, [2018] All ER (D) 137 (May).
One evening, while on holiday in Tenerife, the claimant and his family went out on to the balcony of their hotel room, only to find themselves trapped when a defect in the lock on the door prevented them from re-entering the room. They tried for half an hour to attract attention, but without success. The claimant’s wife wished to visit the toilet, and they also began to become anxious about looking in on their children, who were asleep in another part of the hotel.
