Reeves v Commissioner of Police

Facts

Martin Lynch was arrested and placed in a police cell. He was known to be a suicide risk and had previously tried to take his own life, although a doctor had found him not to be mentally ill. The flap in his cell door was left open and he hanged himself using it. His partner, as administratrix of his estate, sued the police for negligence.

Issue

Whether the police owed a duty to take reasonable care to prevent the suicide of a prisoner of sound mind, whether his act was a novus actus interveniens, and whether his damages should be reduced for contributory negligence.

Held

The police were liable. The duty extended to preventing a known suicide risk, the suicide did not break the chain of causation, and the damages were reduced by half for contributory negligence.

Ratio

• Where a defendant owes a duty to take reasonable care to prevent a person from committing suicide, because that is the very risk to be guarded against, the person's suicide is not a novus actus interveniens that relieves the defendant of liability.
• A person of sound mind who takes his own life may be found contributorily negligent, as he has failed to take reasonable care for his own safety, and damages can be reduced under the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 to reflect his share of responsibility.

Key reasoning

• The police had accepted responsibility for the custody of a person known to be a suicide risk, so the duty included taking care to prevent that very harm, and it would defeat the duty to treat the deliberate act as breaking the chain of causation.
• The defences of volenti and ex turpi causa had no application because the duty was owed precisely to guard against the prisoner's act, and the statute allowing apportionment makes it possible to reflect his responsibility.
• The apportionment is a matter of what is just and equitable having regard to the claimant's share in the responsibility for the damage, and the reduction of damages by one half was upheld.

Where it fits in the module

For FHS Tort, Reeves is the starred case on contributory negligence and on the interaction of the victim's own act with the duty to prevent that act. It tests whether a claimant's choice can be both the harm that the defendant was meant to prevent and a failure of care for his own safety, and so it is the foundation of the argument about when contributory negligence applies to the victim's deliberate conduct. Students should compare it with Corr v IBC Vehicles and with the line of cases on duties to prevent self-harm.

Criticisms

• Finding contributory negligence in a person who has taken his own life is conceptually awkward, since it treats the person as both the victim of the police's failure and a negligent author of his own death.
• A fifty per cent reduction in a case where the police breached a duty aimed specifically at preventing the act may undermine the deterrent function of the duty.
• The reliance on the sound mind of the deceased creates a hard line between persons who are mentally ill, whose damages are not reduced, and persons who are not, which is difficult to apply in practice.