Most of us find negligence cases interesting – for one thing they’re always relatively accessible and it’s easy (and interesting) to ponder the moral rights and wrongs of what went. We like to see if we agree with the legal outcome.

Contributory negligence often reduces awards and there was an interesting case recently, Campbell v Advantage [2020]. This could be just what you need for a negligence essay! A man who was lying in the back seat of a car suffering the effects of a heavy drinking session was catastrophically injured in an accident. The driver, who died, steered his car into the path of a lorry with a closing speed between the two vehicles of around 100mph. The driver had both excessive amounts of alcohol and some cannabis in his bloodstream. The driver and passenger had been drinking together until the passenger had become so incapacitated by alcohol that he had been removed from the club and placed in the car.

The driver’s insurers argued that contributory negligence applied to the claimant passenger. They claimed that he had consented to be driven by a driver whom he knew to be drunk and that he should have had his seatbelt fastened. The claimant argued that he lacked capacity to consent to being driven by a drunk driver.

There was no evidence that the claimant’s injuries would have been less serious had he been wearing a safety belt so no reduction in damages was made on that point. The judge found however that the claimant did have capacity to agree to be driven, (there was evidence that he had voluntarily moved himself from the front seat of the car to the back at the driver’s suggestion). The judge further noted that following Booth v White [2003], even if he was wrong on the issue of capacity then a claimant could not rely on his own self induced drunkenness to argue a lack of capacity. Does it seem fair that the person who chooses to get very, very drunk is not in a better position on contributory negligence than a person who gets a bit drunk? Probably?

Contributory negligence was assessed at 20%.