Keith Patten supports the quest for coherence in personal injury law
While this approach is to be welcomed it does not answer all the problems of application of the doctrine to individual cases.
While latin has largely fallen out of fashion in our legal system, the maxim ex turpi causa non oritur actio seems to have clung on, perhaps because its usual translation (“from a dishonourable cause an action does not arise”) captures something rather more subtle than the general alternative of “illegality”.
As the common law developed, it would have been open to the courts to rule out any claim in negligence for those injured while engaged in any illegal act whatsoever. Such an approach might have the benefit of simplicity but it would also be extremely harsh. To say that a driver injured by the negligence of another driver could not recover compensation merely because the injured claimant was exceeding the speed limit by a few miles per hour would, to most people, seem absurd and unjust. But, inevitably, once it is accepted that some, but not all, illegal acts will
