Nettleship v Weston [1971] 2 QB 691

KEY POINTS

• In the context of motor car driving, the law establishes a uniform standard of care that all drivers, including learner drivers, must adhere to when it comes to the safety of all passengers in the car, which includes the driving instructor.

FACTS

• Mrs. Weston wanted to learn to drive and asked her friend, Mr. Nettleship, for lessons. She and her spouse assured him they had comprehensive insurance covering him as a passenger during lessons, and he agreed to teach her.

• During her third lesson, while she was driving, Mrs. Weston panicked and crashed into a lamp post, injuring Mr. Nettleship. He claimed damages for negligence, but the judge dismissed the claim, stating that Mrs. Weston had fulfilled her duty to do her best during the lesson, and he did not find her negligent.

JUDGEMENT

• Appeal allowed. The accident was the shared responsibility of both the learner driver and the instructor.

COMMENTARY

• This decision established a significant legal precedent by emphasizing that a person's status as a learner driver does not lower the duty of care they owe to their instructor or other passengers.

• In essence, the court ruled that negligence is not a subjective standard based on the driver's experience but an objective standard based on what a reasonable person would do in similar circumstances.

ORIGINAL ANALYSIS

• CA held that by checking on his position under the car insurance before agreeing to give the lessons, Plaintiff had shown expressly that he did not consent to run the risk of injury which might occur through the learner's known lack of skill, so that she could not rely on the defence of volenti non fit injuria to bar his claim.

Lord Denning MR

If the knowledge of the passenger [ that the driver he was teaching was a bad driver] were held to take away the duty of care, it would mean that we would once again be applying the maxim: Scienti non fit injuria.

• The defence can only apply where there is:

An agreement to waive any claim for negligence. The plaintiff must agree, expressly or impliedly, to waive any claim for any injury that may befall him due to the lack of reasonable care by the defendant: or, more accurately, due to the failure of the defendant to measure up to the standard of care that the law requires of him.

• That was not the case here.