Keith Patten observes the move away from compensation for claimants who were in part liable for their injury
When Patrick Atiyah wrote The Damages Lottery in 1997, one of his principal complaints was that judicial sympathy for the injured was causing negligence law to be “stretched” in ways that resulted in claimants who were themselves largely the authors of their own misfortune, receiving compensation at the expense of “deep pocket” defendants. It is far from clear that subsequent developments have borne out Atiyah’s concern. This is so particularly in the context of accidents in what could broadly be termed leisure pursuits. In these cases the trend has very much been away from compensation.
Geary
Geary v JD Weatherspoon [2011] EWHC 1506 (QB), [2011] All ER (D) 97 (Jun) is the latest example of a claimant injured in the course of a leisure activity failing to establish liability against a well-resourced (and presumably insured) defendant. If these cases did indeed turn on judicial sympathy (as Atiyah appeared to suggest), then it would have been expected that there would have been plenty
