Tort Law

Morris v. Murray

[1991] 2 QB 6; [1990] 3 All ER 801

Facts

• Morris and Murray spent a considerable period drinking alcohol together.
• Both became heavily intoxicated.
• Murray owned or had access to a small light aircraft.
• Despite his extreme intoxication, Murray proposed flying the aircraft.
• Morris helped prepare the aircraft and voluntarily entered it as a passenger.
• Murray attempted to take off.
• The aircraft crashed shortly after leaving the ground.
• Murray was killed.
• Morris suffered serious injuries.
• Morris sued Murray’s estate, alleging negligent piloting.
• The estate relied upon volenti non fit injuria.
• It argued that Morris had knowingly and freely accepted an exceptionally obvious and extreme danger by joining a severely intoxicated pilot.

• Volenti requires the claimant to:
o know the nature and extent of the risk;
o appreciate it; and
o freely agree to accept it.
• The defence is applied cautiously in negligence cases.
• Mere knowledge that another person has acted carelessly is usually insufficient.
• However, voluntary participation in an activity involving an obvious and extreme danger may amount to acceptance of the risk.
• Self-induced intoxication does not ordinarily permit a claimant to avoid the legal consequences of a choice that would have been clear to a sober person.
• The agreement may be inferred from conduct in exceptional circumstances.

• This was not an ordinary case of a passenger accepting a lift from a driver who had consumed a modest amount of alcohol.
• Murray’s intoxication was extreme and plainly incompatible with safely operating an aircraft.
• Flying requires complex judgment, coordination and reaction.
• Morris had spent the drinking period with Murray and personally observed his condition.
• He also participated in preparing the aircraft and willingly boarded it.
• The danger of attempting flight in those circumstances was obvious and overwhelming.
• Morris’s conduct demonstrated more than passive awareness.
• He actively joined in the enterprise and accepted a risk described by the court as resembling a “suicide pact.”
• His own intoxication was self-induced and could not transform the extreme danger into an unknown one.
• The court considered this one of the rare cases in which the claimant’s conduct showed genuine acceptance of the risk itself, rather than merely acceptance of a factual situation containing some danger.
• The causal injury—the crash of the aircraft—was precisely the risk voluntarily undertaken.

• The Court of Appeal held that Morris’s claim was barred by volenti.
• He had knowingly and freely accepted the obvious risk of flying with Murray while both were extremely intoxicated.
• The circumstances were exceptional and went far beyond ordinary contributory negligence.
• Morris’s self-induced intoxication did not prevent the court from inferring consent.