Close | Li Jixiong v Goh Kee Soon [2010] SGDC 12 |
| DC Suit 3319/2008, DA 54/2009 | |
| 12 Jan 2010 | |
| District Court | |
| Earnest Lau Chee Chong | |
| Harvin Bath (Hoh Law Corporation) for the plaintiff, Lim Hui Ying / Patrick Yeo (KhattarWong) for the defendant |
Judgment
12 January 2010 District Judge Earnest Lau: Whether the Defendant owed the Plaintiff a duty of care 1 In the law of negligence, a plaintiff must establish three things before a court will make a finding that a duty of care is owed. (a) The damage must be foreseeable. (b) The relationship of the parties must be sufficiently proximate. (c) It must be fair, just and reasonable to impose such a duty. 2 These criteria mark the boundaries as to when a duty of care in the tort of negligence begins. In law, one does not owe a duty of care to all and sundry. Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] AC 562 first established that a proximate enough relationship must exist before a duty of care is owed. Later cases would expand the proximity principle to include issues of forseeability of damage and overall fairness, justness and reasonableness. This is unsurprising since the tort of negligence is firmly grounded in the province of good sense and logic. But there are unfortunate occasions where the courts have witnessed opportunistic and ill-advised attempts by litigants to contort the law of negligence in support of spurious claims. This case is unfortunately one of such. 3 The plaintiff is foreign worker from China. On 22 July 2007 at about 7.05 pm, he rode a bicycle across a yellow box junction along a pedestrian crossing at Boon Lay Way. It was a rainy day. Visibility was poor. Road surface was wet. Spanning this box junction was a 2-way road with 4 lanes each. At the time of his crossing, the traffic light showed a green man in his favour. But shortly after commencing the crossing, the light signalled red. By then, the traffic lights facing the motor vehicles on the plaintiff’s left turned green. At that point, an SBS bus had paused at the junction waiting to turn right into Jurong Town Hall Road. This bus obscured the plaintiff’s view of vehicles emerging from his left. The plaintiff ought to have stopped. But he did not. Instead, he raced at high speed trying to beat the red man signal. In so doing, he pedalled straight into the front right side of a passing taxi. At the time of accident, this taxi had the right of way. But the taxi could not see the plaintiff because of the stationary SBS bus. Conversely, the plaintiff also did not see the oncoming taxi. The momentum of impact was so great that it flung the plaintiff over the taxi to land at the rear of the vehicle. At that instance, a goods van was following behind the taxi. On seeing the accident between the plaintiff and the taxi, the van driver immediately swerved left to avoid a collision with the taxi and plaintiff. He missed the taxi but crashed into the plaintiff’s legs. 4 The plaintiff survived the accident but felt aggrieved. So he launched a law suit to claim compensation for his injuries – a district court action. Curiously, he did not sue the taxi driver. Instead, he made the van driver the defendant in these proceedings. His case was that the defendant failed to take due care to avoid colliding into him. He alleged the defendant for causing the accident by driving his van too closely to the taxi, and for failing to keep a safe distance in between vehicles. The plaintiff’s counsel framed his case syllogistically as follows: if the defendant kept a safe distance, the accident would not happen; because the accident occurred, it proves the defendant failed to keep safe distance. 5 The defendant’s defence was straightforward. First, he argued that the plaintiff had failed to prove his case in law. Second, he relied on the defence of inevitable accident. The defendant also called the taxi driver as a witness. 6 After considering the arguments and hearing all witnesses, I dismissed the claim. 7 I accepted defence counsel’s submission that the plaintiff failed to discharge his legal burden -of proof. The plaintiff could not show why a duty of care should be owed or even breached by the defendant. It is my finding that the defendant was neither speeding nor driving dangerously at all material time. In fact the defendant was driving at a reasonable speed and exercising his proper right of way when the plaintiff suddenly and recklessly landed in front of his vehicle. It would offend justice and common sense to impose a duty or care on the defendant vis-à-vis the plaintiff this situation. The plaintiff rode to his own misfortune. He cycled negligently, hit a taxi, flew in mid-air and landed in front the defendant’s van. When cross examined, he admitted being at fault for hitting the taxi. His actions violate the all rules of proximity, remoteness and fairness that the law of negligence requires me to apply. 8 Even if I am wrong on the absence of duty of care, the plaintiff also failed to prove any breach thereof. The plaintiff led no evidence to show the defendant driving dangerously or failing to keep a safe distance from the taxi. His case is entirely speculative. Instead of faulting the defendant, I think the defendant ought to be commended for his reactions in the face of imminent danger. The accident unfolded within a split second. If he braked, the van would have skidded to sandwich the plaintiff in between the two motor vehicles. If he swerved right, he might have hit the SBS bus. Swerving left was the best option. 9 I completely disagreed with the plaintiff’s counsel’s submission that the accident was indicative of the defendant’s failure to keep a safe distance. The defendant had sufficient time to swerve left. This suggests he kept a safe distance with the taxi. In any event, as the defendant counsel correctly submitted, the vehicle safety distance is a highway code guideline applying to 2 vehicles travelling one ahead of another. Its objective is to give the rear vehicle enough reaction time to avert a rear end collision. There are safety distances for vehicles because accidents between front and rear vehicles are foreseeable. But this guideline is completely irrelevant to flying cyclists who suddenly materialise in between 2 vehicles. That possibility is just too remote. 10 On the matter of evidence and witnesses, most of the material facts were agreed beforehand. Of the facts that were disputed, I preferred the accounts of the defence witnesses. I thought the plaintiff was contradictory in large phases of his testimony, and appeared evasive at times. The defendant and the taxi driver on the other hand fared better in the witness box. They corroborated each other’s testimony without giving me the impression that the testimonies were rehearsed. There is also nothing raised by the plaintiff to fault the independence of the taxi driver; or the credibility of both defence witnesses. 11 The grounds I have cited are sufficient to dispose of the plaintiff’s case. For the sake of completeness, I want to briefly address the defendant’s defence of inevitable accident. It is locally accepted that inevitable accident represents a good defence in a negligence action. This defence pre-dates the modern tort of negligence and was first used in relation to other torts (e.g. tort of nuisance). It imposes on a defendant the burden to prove that this was an accident he could not prevent by the exercise of ordinary care, caution and skill: Loh Luan Choo Betsy & Ors v. Foo Wah Jek 12 In the tort of negligence however, a defendant rarely needs to invoke inevitable accident as a defence. This is because the plaintiff bears the burden to prove existence of duty, breach and causation. A failure to do so would warrant a dismissal of claim – as in the present case. Hence, the defence of inevitable accident is mostly redundant in a negligence suit save perhaps in exceptional situations. Nevertheless, assuming my analysis is incorrect and that this inevitable accident defence is relevant for present purposes, I am satisfied that the defendant has discharged the requisite burden of proof to show that the accident could not be prevented by the exercise of ordinary care, caution and skill. 13. Claim dismissed with costs to the Defendant fixed at $15,000 (plus GST and disbursements to be agreed or taxed).
