Tort Law

Manindra Nath Mukherjee v. Mathuradas Chatturbhuj

AIR 1946 Cal 175

Facts

• The defendant operated a cinema and erected a large advertisement or sky sign outside the premises.
• The main structure was made of steel and measured approximately twelve feet by twenty-five feet.
• A wooden-framed cloth banner, approximately twelve feet by three-and-a-half feet, was attached to it.
• The banner was secured using relatively weak coir ropes.
• More durable methods, such as bolts, grooves, screws or stronger fastenings, were not used.
• On a stormy monsoon evening, the banner became detached.
• It fell upon the plaintiff, who was walking along the public road.
• The plaintiff suffered a deep head injury approximately three-and-a-half inches long, extending to the bone.
• He incurred medical expenses, pain and loss.
• The defendant argued that the fall resulted from an extraordinary storm constituting an Act of God.
• Evidence showed that the wind velocity was below approximately twenty-seven miles per hour.

• Res ipsa loquitur may apply where:
o the thing causing injury was under the defendant’s control;
o the accident ordinarily would not occur without negligence; and
o the claimant did not materially contribute to it.
• An occupier must take reasonable care to ensure that structures beside a public road do not fall upon pedestrians.
• An Act of God requires:
o operation of natural forces;
o an event so extraordinary that reasonable foresight could not anticipate it; and
o harm that reasonable precautions could not prevent.
• Ordinary seasonal weather does not become an Act of God merely because it contributes to an accident.
• The defendant bears the burden of explaining an accident once res ipsa properly applies.

• Advertisement boards properly designed, secured and maintained do not ordinarily fall into a public street.
• The structure was under the defendant’s exclusive management.
• The plaintiff was merely using the road and had no role in creating the danger.
• Res ipsa therefore permitted an inference that the fall resulted from inadequate fastening or maintenance.
• The use of ordinary coir rope for a large outdoor banner exposed to seasonal weather was insufficient.
• Stronger and readily available methods could have been used to secure it.
• The defendant failed to show that the wind was unprecedented or irresistible.
• Storms and gusts are normal features of the Calcutta monsoon.
• A wind of less than twenty-seven miles per hour was not so extraordinary that a reasonable occupier could ignore it when installing an external advertisement.
• The natural event therefore did not displace the defendant’s negligence.
• The case also referred to strict-liability principles, but liability could be established directly through the negligent fastening and the inference arising from the fall.

• The Calcutta High Court held the defendant liable.
• Res ipsa loquitur applied because the controlled structure fell in circumstances ordinarily indicating negligence.
• The banner had not been properly secured.
• The monsoon wind was not an Act of God because it was neither unprecedented nor beyond reasonable anticipation.
• The plaintiff received ₹5,000 as general damages and ₹450 as special damages.