Stovin v Wise

Factual and Procedural Background

On 11 December 1988 the Plaintiff was seriously injured when the Defendant, driving from [Road B] into [Road A], collided with the Plaintiff’s motorcycle. Visibility at the junction was severely restricted by a bank of earth and a fence situated on land owned by Company B. Company A, the highway authority, had long known that the junction was dangerous; accidents had already occurred in 1976, 1982 and March 1988.

In January 1988 Company A wrote to Company B offering to remove the bank at its own expense, but after an initial site meeting no follow-up action was taken. At first-instance Judge [Last Name] held the Defendant 70 per cent liable and Company A 30 per cent liable for negligent failure to act. The Court of Appeal affirmed. Company A appealed to the House of Lords, which delivered the present judgment on 24 July 1996.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether a highway authority owes a common-law duty of care to road users for failing to exercise a statutory power (Highways Act 1980, s. 79) to remove a known source of danger it did not create.
2. Whether such an omission can found liability in negligence, given the distinction between acts and omissions and the discretionary nature of the statutory power.

Arguments of the Parties

Company A (Appellant)

• The statutory power under section 79 is discretionary; a statutory “may” cannot be converted into a common-law “must.”
• The alleged breach was an omission; long-standing authority (e.g. East Suffolk) denies liability for non-exercise of powers.
• Imposing liability would distort budgetary priorities, forcing excessive expenditure on road improvements at the expense of other public services.
• The policy/operations distinction protects discretionary resource-allocation decisions from negligence claims.

Plaintiff (Respondent)

• Company A actually decided to remedy the hazard and had funds available; non-implementation was therefore unreasonable.
• Road users are dependent on the highway authority; proximity exists once the authority knows of a serious danger and has exclusive power to remove it.
• Precedents such as Anns v. Merton demonstrate that failure to exercise statutory powers can attract tort liability where physical injury is foreseeable.
• Imposing liability would incentivise reasonable safety measures and align with public expectations.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The majority (four Law Lords) emphasised the fundamental distinction between acts and omissions. Company A had not created the hazard; liability must therefore rest on a duty to act. Such a duty could arise only if:

1. Public-law principles made it irrational not to act; and
2. The statutory framework implied that victims should receive compensation for non-exercise of the power.

On the facts, the junction did not satisfy the council’s objective criteria for urgent treatment, and allocating scarce funds elsewhere was a rational policy choice. Consequently, no public-law obligation to act arose, and without that platform no common-law duty of care could be super-imposed.

The House rejected the “occupier” analogy: unlike a private occupier, the highway authority cannot restrict public use, and McGeown confirms no duty arises merely from ownership. It also declined to extend the “general reliance” doctrine; each road-improvement decision is unique, preventing the sort of uniform expectation found in building-inspection cases.

Policy considerations weighed heavily. Imposing liability would divert resources, encourage defensive expenditure and invite courts to manage budgetary choices better left to elected bodies. The majority therefore repudiated the Court of Appeal’s view that the earlier internal decision to act transformed a discretion into an enforceable duty.

Judge [Last Name] delivered a lone dissent, favouring a duty on the grounds of proximity, the severity of foreseeable harm, and the modest cost of the remedial work.

Holding and Implications

Appeal allowed; Plaintiff’s claim against Company A dismissed. The orders of Judge [Last Name] and the Court of Appeal were set aside. The Plaintiff was ordered to pay Company A’s costs at all levels.

Implications: The decision sets a clear boundary on negligence claims against public authorities for non-exercise of discretionary powers. It confirms that, absent irrationality and express statutory intent to compensate, highway authorities are not liable in tort for failing to remove dangers they did not create. The ruling narrows the scope of Anns and underscores judicial reluctance to second-guess public resource allocation.