Ryan Jones v Persimmon Homes Limited & Anor
[2024] EWHC 2597 (KB)
Anthony Stokes v Ministry of Justice & Anor
10 January 2024
[2024] EWHC 15 (KB)
High Court
A prison worker fell down the stairs and got hurt. The court said both his boss and the company that fixed the stairs were to blame because the stairs were broken and nobody noticed or fixed them properly. The boss was less responsible than the repair company because the reporting system for problems wasn't working. The worker wasn't blamed for the fall.
Key Facts
- •Mr. Anthony Stokes, a custodial manager at HMP Cardiff, suffered a significant head injury in an accident on April 22, 2021.
- •The accident occurred on a staircase in an area not accessible to inmates and not covered by CCTV.
- •Mr. Stokes has no recollection of the events.
- •The accident scene revealed defective lighting and a displaced stair nosing.
- •The nosing had been replaced by Amey (Second Defendant) in October 2019.
- •A post-accident inspection revealed numerous other defects in the prison's staircases and lighting.
- •The prison's reactive maintenance system, using Planet FM, was found to be ineffective.
- •Expert witnesses provided conflicting opinions on whether the defective nosing caused the fall or was dislodged by the fall.
Legal Principles
Non-delegable duty of care owed by an employer to provide a safe place of work and safe system of work.
Common law
Duty of care owed by maintenance contractors to those reasonably foreseeable as affected by their actions.
Common law
Evidential burden shift in cases involving hazards in areas under the defendant's control (Ward v Tesco Stores; Dawkins v Carnival PLC).
Ward v Tesco Stores [1976] 1WLR 810; Dawkins v Carnival PLC [2011] EWCA Civ 1237
Material contribution to the accident, not merely material contribution to risk, is required to establish liability.
Case Law
Keefe benevolence - If a defendant breaches a duty, making it difficult for a claimant to adduce evidence, the court should judge the claimant's evidence benevolently and the defendant's critically.
Keefe v Isle of Man Steam Packet Co [2010] EWCA Civ 683
Outcomes
Both the Ministry of Justice (First Defendant) and Amey Community Limited (Second Defendant) were found liable for Mr. Stokes' injuries.
The First Defendant breached its non-delegable duty by failing to operate an effective system for identifying and remedying maintenance issues. The Second Defendant breached its duty of care through inadequate repair work and failure to inspect the repair adequately. The court found that the defective stair nosing caused the fall.
Liability apportioned 40% to the First Defendant and 60% to the Second Defendant.
While both defendants were at fault, the Second Defendant's failure to adequately repair and inspect the stair nosing was considered a greater contributing factor.
No finding of contributory negligence against the Claimant.
The court considered it unreasonable to expect the claimant to proceed down the stairs in total darkness, given his familiarity with the route and the absence of a torch.