Forwarded on behalf of Eoin Quill.

Regards

Neil

Neil Foster

Senior Lecturer & LLB Program Convenor

School of Law

Faculty of Business & Law

University of Newcastle

Callaghan NSW 2308

AUSTRALIA

ph 02 4921 7430

fax 02 4921 6931

From: "Eoin.Quill"
Subject: RE: Duty of care re petrol spill from truck
To: "Neil Foster"
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 08:43:50 +0100
Neil, I don't have quite the sense of surprise you do. I have more difficulty with an Irish decision where a crash resulting from a fuel leak in somewhat different circumstances was found not to generate liability - Rothwell v MIBI [2003] IESC 16; [2003] 1 IR 268; [2003] 1 ILRM 521.
It may seem harsh (when you hit a rock, you don't think 'fuel tank?' I certainly don't), but on the objective interpretation of reasonable care used by courts (which is often tainted with hindsight, whatever the judges say) it has to count as one of the possibilities that would have occurred to a reasonable person - it's rare, but not outside the bounds of possibility, that a fuel tank will be ruptured. Reasonable care has become a very exacting standard in many cases, including road accidents, and is getting closer to strict liability in effect and the reasonable person, as legally defined, is an extremely rare and exceptional creature not actually known to live amongst the populations ruled by this legal standard. I don't have a difficulty with that, except I would prefer the honesty of dropping 'reasonable' and calling it strict liability. Eoin Quill
University of Limerick
(You might forward this to the discussion group, please. I have some administrative/technical impediment on sending direct. Thanks)