The Oropesa
Reasonable conduct by a person acting in an emergency created by the defendant's negligence does not break the chain of causation.
Facts
Two ships, the Oropesa and the Manchester Regiment, collided at sea, through the negligence of both ships. The master of the Manchester Regiment, which was badly damaged, decided to take some of the crew in a lifeboat to the Oropesa, to discuss saving his ship. The lifeboat capsized in heavy seas, and some of the crew drowned. The parents of one of those who died sued the owners of the Oropesa.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that the owners of the Oropesa were liable. Lord Wright said that the master's decision was not a new cause, but was the natural consequence of the emergency caused by the collision, and was reasonable in the circumstances. To break the chain of causation, the intervening act must be something unwarrantable, a new cause which disturbs the sequence of events, something which can be described as either unreasonable or extraneous or extrinsic.
Related cases on remoteness and intervening acts
- Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13, [2008] 1 AC 884
- Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963] AC 837
- Jolley v Sutton London Borough Council [2000] 1 WLR 1082
- Knightley v Johns [1982] 1 WLR 349
- Lagden v O'Connor [2003] UKHL 64, [2004] 1 AC 1067
- Lamb v Camden London Borough Council [1981] QB 625
- McKew v Holland & Hannen & Cubitts (Scotland) Ltd [1969] 3 All ER 1621
- Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Miller Steamship Co Pty Ltd (The Wagon Mound (No 2)) [1967] 1 AC 617
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