Widow of London motorcyclist killed in lorry accident successful in High Court damages claim

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2024] EWHC 2292 (KB)
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  England and Wales High Court
• Judge:
  His Honour Judge Martin Picton

Louise Palmer, the widow of the late Simon Palmer, raised a claim against the driver of the lorry, Russell Timms, along with his employer, Bluestone Transport Ltd, and insurer Zurich Insurance plc. Damages were agreed subject to liability, which turned on the issue of Mr Timms’ awareness of the deceased.

The case was heard in the High Court of Justice by Judge Martin Picton sitting as a deputy High Court judge. Andrew Roy KC appeared for the claimant and James Todd KC for the defendants.

Deliberately executed movement

On 20 June 2019 at around 8:35am, Mr Palmer was travelling to work in London on his motorbike and filtering through slow-moving traffic on Holloway Road. As he began passing a lorry being driven by the first defendant, Mr Timms’ vehicle moved left, reducing the available space for Mr Palmer to pass on the nearside. Nonetheless, Mr Palmer continued forward, which resulted in the top box of the bike coming into contact with a camera on the nearside of the lorry. Mr Palmer lost control of his vehicle and fell onto the pavement at significant velocity, colliding with a metal bollard positioned a little in from the kerb. He died as a result of the injuries he sustained.

The claimant’s primary case alleged that Mr Timms deliberately executed the movement to block Mr Palmer’s progress along his nearside, motivated by a degree of annoyance at Mr Palmer’s perceived “undertaking” of the traffic. On that basis, the claimant suggested his conduct amounted to a trespass to the person for which the defendant should be held liable.

An alternative case made by the claimant was based on Mr Timms negligently moving to his nearside without checking if it was safe to do so and in circumstances where it was unsafe. Mr Timms claimed he had moved to allow another motorcyclist, Dominic Molyneux, to pass on the other side of the lorry and was not aware that Mr Palmer was there.

On behalf of the defendants, it was argued there was an absence of evidence supporting the primary case. The parties were agreed that the principal factual issue was why Mr Timms had chosen to move the vehicle to his nearside, with Mr Timms being the only live witness. The reliability of Mr Timms as a witness was challenged by the claimant, while the defendants maintained that if liability were found to exist, contributory negligence ought to be assessed at 75 percent.

Tragic consequences

In his decision, Judge Picton said of Mr Timms’ credibility: “In my judgment, Mr Timms was confused about what had happened because his mind had not been focussed on his driving, and even at that very early stage he was trying to find a way to offload responsibility. That may have been to some degree an instinctive defence mechanism as it became apparent to him, as it must have done very quickly, that Mr Palmer had suffered very serious injuries which were to prove fatal.”

He continued: “It is a matter of common human experience that people tend to rewrite events over time, particularly if they have been traumatic and potentially blameworthy. Someone who has to live with the prospect of moral, and in this case potentially criminal, responsibility for taking the life of another human being will cast around for an interpretation of their actions that places them in the best light possible. The degree to which this may be a conscious or unconscious reaction is a matter that has potential relevance to the disposition in respect of the claimant’s primary case.”

Assessing whether this meant the claimant’s primary case was made out, Picton J said: “I am unpersuaded of the claimant’s ‘primary’ case. With all due respect to the enthusiasm with which this has been pursued, I do not accept that it has a sufficient foundation in the evidence or on inferences that can confidently and safely be drawn from that. I do not accept that it is a necessary corollary of Mr Timms being an unreliable historian that I should conclude he acted intentionally by way of seeking to block an anticipated or potential undertaking manoeuvre.”

However, on the negligence arm of the case he added: “Mr Timms accepted that such a manoeuvre as Mr Palmer was attempting to execute is normal for city driving generally; that it is commonplace to have two-wheeled vehicles passing on both the nearside and offside. As a matter of common experience, this is a normal feature of how traffic flows on busy streets in cities up and down the land. It is not necessary to be a professional driver in order to be aware of that. It is reasonable to expect, however, that the professional lorry driver should have a significant level of awareness of what may be termed ‘standard’ driving conditions in a busy environment.”

Considering contributory negligence, Picton J concluded: “The blameworthiness of Mr Timms significantly outweighs that of Mr Palmer. Each of the errors perpetrated by the parties was relatively venial. Such things happen regularly without an adverse outcome. They each perpetrated a species of common or garden negligent driver error that, absent consequences such as resulted here, is not worthy of particular moral blame and, even if observed, would be unlikely to promote much if any reaction on the part of the observer. It is the simple unfortunate concatenation of circumstance that has caused such commonplace errors to result in these tragic consequences.”

Accordingly, judgment was made for the claimant, with liability for damages reduced by one third in respect of contributory negligence.