Judicinal precedent case studies Flashcards
Balfour v Balfour 1919
husband oversees and stops making payments to wife
Merit v merit
husband and wife split. husband gives wife house if she pays it. he hanges his mind and does
Aderton v ryan 1985
The defendant was found in possession of a video recorder.
She refused to name the source, but admitted that she believed it to be stolen.
After it became clear that there was no evidence that it was in fact stolen, she was convicted of attempting to handle stolen goods.
she had criminal intent but it wasn’t a crime
R v Shivpuri 1986
Pyare Shivpuri (S) was persuaded to act as a drugs courier. He collected a suitcase which contained several packages of white powder which he admitted in police interview that he believed to be either heroin or cannabis but was in fact legal snuff. He was charged with attempting to be knowingly concerned in dealing with and harbouring the controlled drug of heroin, under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981
He claimed that he could not be found guilty in law of an impossible offence, because the substance was not a drug.
The Court of Appeal and House of Lords dismissed the appeal and upheld the conviction.
Donoghue v Stephenson 1932
After eating part of her ice cream, she then poured the remaining contents of the bottle of ginger beer over the ice cream and a decomposed snail emerged from the bottle.
Mrs Donoghue suffered personal injury as a result. She commenced a claim against the manufacturer of the ginger beer.
Her claim was successful. This case established the modern law of negligence and established the neighbour test.
R v Dica 2003 (sets an original precedent for consent)
The defendant, Mohamed Dica was charged with inflicting two counts of GBH under s 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861.
The defendant was charged on the basis that while knowing he was HIV positive, he had unprotected sexual intercourse with two women who were unaware of his infection. Both women were infected with HIV.
The court found that given the complainants had consensually agreed to unprotected sexual intercourse, they were therefore accepting the risk of such acts. So Dica wasn’t charged.
Grant v Australian Knitting Mills [1936].
Grant contracted a disease due to a woollen jumper that contained excess sulphur and had been negligently manufactured. Privy Council allowed a claim in negligence against the manufacturer, Australian Knitting Mills.
R v Howe & Bannister [1987]
Howe (19) and Bannister (20) had met through the two other co-defendants Murray and Bailey. Over the course of two days the four men horrifically killed two teenagers in a remote area. They were all charged with murder.
Murray and Bailey were convicted and sentenced for murder at the Crown Court. Howe and Bannister on the other hand, appealed their conviction. The appeal was on the basis that the two were forced to commit the acts in fear that Murray, a man 15 years their senior, would inflict the same treatment upon them.
Duress is not a defence to a charge of murder, whether the accused acted to protect his own life or the life of his family. Accordingly, the defence is not available to the person who killed the victim or those who participated in the murder as principals in the second degree.
(2) If the person under duress is convicted of manslaughter, the person exercising duress can be convicted of murder regardless of this fact.
Rondel v Worsely [1967]
The Claimant was charged and convicted of GBH. The defendant was the barrister who represented him at trial. The Claimant brought a negligence action against him claiming that he had not asked all the questions he had asked him to when cross examining witnesses and had not put all the evidence before the court.
The High Court struck out the claim as disclosing no cause of action because barristers can not be sued by their client for negligence or lack of skill in presenting their case in court.
Barristers are immune from negligence suits for their conduct of a case in court.
Saif Ali v Sidney Mitchell & Co 1980
In a case concerning the issue of a barrister’s immunity from a civil action for negligence in representing a client in litigation, the House of Lords considered the
‘general immunity from civil liability which attaches to all persons in respect of their participation in proceedings before a court of justice’.
This immunity includes witnesses and is based on public policy
‘to ensure that trials are conducted without avoidable stress and tensions of alarm and fear in those who have a part to play in them’.
