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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Bateman v East Midlands Motor [2000] EWCA Civ 389 (29 November 2000) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2000/389.html Cite as: [2000] EWCA Civ 389

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE SHEFFIELD COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Heppel QC)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Wednesday, 29th November 2000

1. LORD JUSTICE HENRY: A 15 year old schoolgirl called Carly Bateman was on a bus on the way to school when the bus driver made an emergency stop at a time when she was walking from the back of the bus towards the front. She was thrown to the ground and sustained injuries. She brought an action in damages for those injuries, alleging negligence by the driver, which action was tried some four and a half years after the date of the accident. It was tried by District Judge Oldham.
2. The essential primary facts were common ground: first, that she was walking from the back to the front of the bus at the time. She was doing that at the invitation of the bus driver who had not driven the route before and who wanted help from those familiar with it as to the course of the route. He did make an emergency stop. That emergency stop was caused by a car coming out from a side road and crossing the path of the bus, left to right, from a minor road called Pentland Road, when the bus clearly had the right of way. That car was seen by two people, the bus driver and another schoolgirl who was then just 16, Miss Belk. They gave conflicting accounts. The driver said that he made a necessary emergency stop because the car drove straight into his path. That emergency stop was forced and was necessary.
3. The evidence of Miss Belk, the schoolgirl, was summarised by the District Judge in this way:

"Miss Belk did see a car, she had also seen it on Pentland Road and she saw it come out from Pentland Road onto the main road, she says at a considerable distance in front of the bus and in her view there was no reason at all for the bus driver to have to make any sort of emergency procedure to avoid hitting it."

4. The District Judge said:

"On balance I prefer Miss Belk's account of that. I am not persuaded that Mr Gadsby has shown that it was necessary for him to stop as an emergency in the way that he did.. . . In my view this accident occurred because Mr. Gadsby did not know the route, he was not in a position where he could simply concentrate wholly on his driving but he was having to take instructions from passengers as to where he was supposed to go and he became aware of a vehicle in front of him and his immediate reaction was to make an emergency stop. He should have known that Miss Bateman had not been able to take her seat by that stage."

5. That is how the district judge put it. It was appealed to the county court judge who accepted that the district judge had had the advantage of hearing and seeing the witnesses, but first addressed his mind to the question of distractions. True it was that the bus driver did not know the way or was not sure that he did. It was his first day on the route. He did speak to the girls when the bus was in motion, as the district judge found. He simply asked for assistance. The evidence as to his departure from the stop was that he went straight off down the main road, having been told that it was straight down the main road. He had not got above 20 or 25 mph. There was clear visibility of the Pentland Road junction in front of him. The county court judge was critical of the inferences made by the district judge from the primary facts, most of which were not disputed. It was common ground that the car was there, coming from the major into the minor road across the path of the bus.
6. The defendants accepted that the driver had to provide a reason for braking. The correct test was whether he was acting in accordance with the standards of a reasonably competent driver and not whether it was necessary for him to stop as an emergency in the way that he did, as expressed by the district judge. The district judge having taken the wrong test, it was open to the county court judge to look critically at the facts as found. Having accepted that the driver had to provide a reason for braking, he first addressed the question: should the driver have moved off when he knew that one of the schoolgirls was walking forward towards him as already described? He rightly took as his starting point the case of Fletcher v United Counties Omnibus Co [1997] PIQR 154, the headnote to the report of which reads:

"Drivers of public buses cannot sensibly be expected to wait for all boarding passengers to take their seats, wherever they may choose to sit before they can properly drive away the bus from the stop. Bus drivers... must take steps to ensure the reasonable safety of their passengers, but that duty is satisfied by the provision within buses of appropriate safety supports. The driver was well entitled to drive away from the bus stop as he did, gently and at a reasonable speed. Different considerations may apply if elderly or infirm passengers, or even passengers encumbered by luggage, board. If there is some particular risk of accident then special steps may need to be taken."

7. The distinguishing feature put forward on behalf of the claimant was that the driver had requested the claimant to change her seat and placed her in a position of vulnerability while she did so, and that, in those circumstances, he should not have driven.
8. Neither the trial judge, nor Hale L.J. as the single Lord Justice, was of the opinion that the exceptions to the rule in Fletcher applied in this case. Hale L.J. expressed it pithily:

" . . . able-bodied 15 year old girls cannot be considered more vulnerable for this purpose. The county court judge was, in my judgment, quite right not to accept this as coming within the exceptional categories set out in Fletcher."

9. The next question is: was the driver distracted by his ignorance of the route and having to ask for directions? The county court judge made the point that he was proceeding straight on the major road. There was no criticism of his driving before the emergency breaking. There was no evidence that at any time his eye was not on the road, as one would expect. The county court judge concluded:

"In my judgment there was insufficient evidence to draw the inference that the driver was distracted. The evidence of the driver that he judged the situation to require an emergency stop was prima facie credible, it was not in any way displaced by thorough cross-examination and the district judge made no finding that he was not giving his evidence honestly. In these circumstances there was insufficient evidence to justify a finding that he fell below the standards of a reasonably competent driver. The immediate cause of the accident cannot be blamed on Mr Gadsby."

10. With that summary I agree.
11. One then comes to look at the braking in that way: was he acting in accordance with the standards of a reasonably competent driver? The district judge proceeded uncritically to accept the evidence of Miss Belk. He did this despite the fact that, when she had had to answer a questionnaire some four years earlier in the immediate aftermath of the accident as to who was responsible for the accident, she said, the car which came out of the side road. The district judge nowhere dealt with that difficulty at all. As against that the driver's account had been consistent throughout. There was no suggestion made to him that he was giving his evidence other than honestly. He was in the best position to judge the extent of the emergency that he was confronted with when the car came across his bows. If he had committed the braking manoeuvre after the car had already crossed in front of him, as suggested by Miss Belk, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see that she would have said that the car which came out of the side road was responsible for the accident. But, in any event, the district judge nowhere dealt with that difficulty. In those circumstances, he gave no reason for preferring her changed account to the driver's consistent account. In my judgment, the circuit judge was right to allow this appeal and to dismiss this action.
12. In any event, the appeal is subject to section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999. This is not a case which raises either an important point of principle or practice; nor is there any other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear it. It is just the kind of appeal which the alteration of the rules was intended to keep from this court. For those reasons, despite the care which Mr. Attwool for the appellant has put into his plain and succinct submissions, this application for permission to appeal must be dismissed.
Order: Application refused.