JUDEGMENT SUMMARY: Butterfield V Forrester (1809) 103 E.R. 926
YEAR OF JUDGEMENT: 1809
JUDGES: Bayley J,Chief Justice Lord Ellenborough
PARTIES
- Butterfield (Petitioner)
- Forrester (Defendant)
SUBJECT
The following judgement was an English case that was the first appearance of Contributory Negligence as a common law defence against Negligence. In this case the bench also determined that common caution from the side of injured party is also necessary in order to claim damages.
AN OVERVIEW
- Forrester set a pole against the street close to his home over the span of making fixes to the house.
- Butterfield was riding his horse at a fast speed at roughly 8 pm at nightfall and didn't see the pole.
- He struck the pole and suffered some wounds when he gets off from his horse.
- An observer confirmed that visibility was 100 yards away at the hour of the mishap and Butterfield may have seen and maintained a strategic distance from the pole had he not been riding at quite a fast.
- There was no proof that Butterfield had been intoxicated at the hour of the mishap.
- At trial, It was declared that that Butterfield was not riding with reasonable care and a person riding with reasonable care could have avoided the pole, the decision was in support of Forrester.
IMPORTANT TERMS
Contributory Negligence
Contributory negligence fundamentally implies ignorance from both the sides are involved. It's a guard accessible to the respondent if there should be an occurrence of contributory negligence which forestalls the offended party to get compensation.
Contributory negligence is the ignorance of due care with respect to the offended party to stay away from the results of the respondent's negligence. This idea is inexactly founded on the maxim "Volenti non fit injuria" (injury sustained voluntarily). It implies If an individual isn't taking due measures to dodge outcomes coming about out from the negligence of the defendant, the risk of negligence will be on the two of them.
ISSUES
The issue here was whether a defendant, whose negligent conduct led to injury or damage upon the plaintiff, should be held liable for the injury when the plaintiff could have avoided the damage by riding with reasonable care.
ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGEMENT
The consequence of Butterfield was that it made the defence of contributory negligence a total boycott to an action of damages irrespective of how little is the issue done by the petitioner in the mishap. In this way for a situation where there was negligence on both restricting gatherings, if there was an effective request of contributory negligence the respondent would be cleared.
Lord Ellenborough C.J concurred with Bayley J and delivered the rule on contributory negligence, he said: “A party is not to cast himself upon an obstruction which has been made by the fault of another, and avail himself of it, if he do not himself use common and ordinary caution to be in the right.”
The Rule that “if a man lay logs of wood across a highway; though a person may with care ride safely by, yet if by means thereof my horse stumble and fling me, I may bring an action” was refused.
Further, the extent of Butterfield (contributory negligence) was expansive as it very well may be depended upon in instances of suicide and self-harm,and most importantly where youngsters were involved. In respects to the later, kids as youthful as five and six years of age have been found to have been contributorily negligent.
To some the standard's position that a total boycott be given was brutal and didn't generally yield an equitable choice. This implies that the Butterfield rule – the total ban on solution for the petitioner, has been rejected as it was contended that it would be silly and vile for the claimant's harms to be diminished by 100 percent. However, it is important that there have been situations where a judgment of 100% contributory negligence has been reached.
CONCLUSION
The case introduces Contributory Negligence from the base level, which simply states that negligence/ignorance/carelessness matters even if you are injured too. It wipes out the fact that carelessness of only single party matters, and empowers people to take basic caution before actually blaming someone completely. Hence, it works as a shield for some negligence cases where defendant lacks basic care, and ultimately overlaps plaintiff’s negligence to due to this act.
