The Plaintiff in this case worked for the Defendant as a plant machinery driver. In June 1998 he was involved in an accident in which he fell seven or eight feet and injured his back. His employer accepted liability in respect of this accident. In 2000, he suffered a second accident in which he suffered a fall on the staircase at home when his back gave way. The result of this second accident was a moderately severe injury to his right knee. In 2001, the Plaintiff began proceedings against the Defendant alleging that the accident had been caused by his negligence. An issue arose as to whether the 2000 fall was a consequence of the 1998 back injury. The Defendant argued that this was not the case. The trial judge found that the fall at home would not have occurred but for the accident at work and that causation had clearly been established between the two incidents. He concluded that there was a continuum of significant back problems arising from the original fall which ultimately resulted in the 2000 fall down the stairs. In assessing damages, the judge took account of the medical evidence that but for the injury the Plaintiff had a degree of spinal degeneration which meant that he would have eventually faced lumbar problems in the future in any case. In addition to this, he had also had another unrelated accident at work in 1999. In taking account of this accident and the pre-existing back condition, the trial judge discounted the Plaintiff’s award of damages by 10%. The Defendant appealed against the judge’s apportionment of 90% of the loss and the Plaintiff cross-appealed.
On appeal, the Plaintiff argued that it had been proven that the initial fall at work in 1998 had been a material cause of the subsequent fall at home and that as a result, he was entitled to the full award of damages. The Defendant submitted that there should have been a three way split in the apportionment of damages between the initial accident at work, the pre-existing degeneration and the 2000 accident. He claimed that 70% should be attributed to the pre-existing degeneration, 20% to the 1998 accident, and 10% to the 1999 accident. The Court of Appeal found in favour of the Plaintiff. They held that if the ‘but for’ test was applied correctly to the Plaintiff, then he should receive 100% of his damages. This was because the second accident was not a completely separate intervening event. This was essentially therefore a single accident case, relating to the initial accident in 2000 and the Plaintiff recovered damages in full.