Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:28:04 +0100

From: Robert Stevens

Subject: Suicidal Decisions in the Court of Appeal

An interesting case in the Court of Appeal on remoteness of loss, Corr v IBC.

Mr Corr was seriously injured whilst at work. His injuries resulted in depression, and he took his own life. A majority of the Court of Appeal (Sedley and Wilson LJJ, Ward LJ dissenting) held the defendant employer liable for the consequences of death. This was so although the risk of suicide was not one of the risks to which the employer's duty extended (see Sedley at [67]) nor was it reasonably foreseeable at the time of the accident (see Wilson at [98]).

The case is interesting not least, for Sedley LJ's lamentable, unnecessary and wholly inconsistent usage of footnotes, an importation from other parts of the Commonwealth that we can well do without.

Robert Stevens
Barrister
University of Oxford

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