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Liability for Suicide - Corr v. IBC Vehicles [2006] EWCA CIV 331
Duncan McNair
Once upon a time, it was very difficult to claim damages arising from a person's suicide. If a person (the victim, "V") died as a result of injuries suffered in an accident for which the defendant was responsible, his dependents ("C") could claim damages under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 and its predecessors. However, if V killed himself because of the consequences of an accident, C's case would be in grave difficulties. Indeed, it used to be thought that C could only recover if V had been criminally insane in the M'Naughten sense, as that was the only way he could escape responsibility for what was once a criminal act. The criminality of suicide -- even after it had been abolished -- cast what Sedley LJ recently called an "anachronistic shadow on the modern law of tort." Following a recent decision of the Court of Appeal, however, that shadow has been lifted to a very great degree.
The facts in Corr v. IBC Vehicles are simple. Mr Corr killed himself by jumping from the top of a multi-storey car park. Six years previously he had suffered serious injuries -- and narrowly escaped death -- in an industrial accident for which the defendant admitted liability. In addition to his physical injuries, he developed post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression. The medical evidence was that Mr Corr suffered a feeling of hopelessness which was the ultimate cause of his suicide, and that the hopelessness arose from his depression, which arose from the accident. However, he knew the nature and quality of the act he committed, and was able to tell right from wrong. When he jumped, he acted deliberately, knowing that the act would result in his death, although the judgment which caused him to make that decision was distorted.
In the past, that would have been the end of the matter. The trial judge found for the defendant, holding that it was not reasonably foreseeable at the time of the accident that the accident would result in Mr Corr's suicide. Accordingly, the defendant's duty to Mr Corr did not extend to taking care to prevent him killing himself. Although the defendant was in breach of its duty in relation to the accident, it was not liable for his suicide.
The Court of Appeal reversed that decision, by a majority. Although Mr Corr made a conscious and rational decision to kill himself, that decision was based on his feeling of hopelessness. The hopelessness arose from his depression, which was caused by the accident. There was a direct chain of causation between the accident and Mr Corr's death, and his own suicide did not amount to a novus actus. There was no need to establish that Mr Corr's suicide would have been reasonably foreseeable at the time of the accident, as suicide was an effect of the psychiatric illness brought on by the accident. So long as the psychiatric illness was reasonably foreseeable, the defendant is liable for the consequences of it. To treat Mr Corr as responsible for his own death would be to "... make an unjustified exception to contemporary principles of causation," per Sedley LJ.
So the law as it now stands is as follows. If a victim is injured in an accident, and psychiatric injury is reasonably foreseeable, the defendant is liable for the consequences of that injury. If the psychiatric injury results in the victim's suicide, the defendant is liable, even if the victim acted in a wholly rational manner. This is, perhaps, a reflection of the idea that a person's goals are not always chosen rationally, even if they are rationally pursued.
However, the defendant would not be liable in other circumstances. If the suicide does not arise from a psychiatric illness arising from the accident, the claim is unlikely to succeed. If a victim's accident put him in a personal situation which caused him to choose suicide -- say, he lost his ability to work -- without a mental illness, the defendant would not be liable. The decision in Corr is aimed very much at the particular situation where the suicide was a direct result of the psychiatric illness. It is unlikely that any chain of causation other than accident --> psychiatric illness --> suicide would be enough to establish liability. And the burden of proof remains on the claimant to establish that the victim's suicide was caused by his psychiatric illness.
Although the Court of Appeal did not make reference to this test, it may well be that something akin to the criminal defence of diminished responsibility may emerge. Sedley LJ and Wilson LJ both made reference to the victim's judgment or reason being 'overwhelmed' or 'impaired.' Compare this with section 2 of the Homicide Act 1957, which permits a defence of diminished responsibility by a person who suffered from an 'abnormality of mind' which 'substantially impaired his mental responsibility' for the killing. Indeed, in Kirkham v. Chief Constable of Manchester [1990] 2 QB 283, the Court of Appeal said that a person who killed himself in a position similar to that of Corr would have been able to defend a murder charge on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
This case does not affect the law regarding what have become known as 'custody' cases. From Kirkham (above) and Reeves v. Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2000] 1 AC 360, a defendant may be liable for a person's suicide if there was a specific duty to guard against that person's suicide. This normally arises when the suicide takes place in the custody of the defendant, and it is no bar to recovery that the deceased was suffering from no mental disturbance at all. Indeed, in Reeves the deceased chose freely to kill himself in police custody. The Court of Appeal held that the death had two equal causes: the deceased's decision to kill himself, and the defendant's failure to remove the means of doing so. The award was reduced by 50% for contributory negligence.
So it appears to be the case that Corr has reduced the minimum level of mental disturbance required to make a defendant liable for a suicide, from M'Naughten insanity to the less strict level of diminished responsibility.
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