Lady Locked In Lavatory Entitled To Damages Before the MASTER of the ROLLS, LORD JusTicE MoRRIs. and LORD JUSTICE ORMEROD Their LORDSHIPS allowed this appeal by Mrs. Eileen Sayers, of Parsonage Leys, Harlow, Essex, from a judgment of Judge Lawson Campbell at Bishop's Stortford County Court on November 25, 1957, in favour of the defendants, the Harlow Urban District Council, on the plaintiffs claim for damages for alleged breach of contract and negligence when she was injured in attempting to get out of a public lavatory after being locked in by reason of a defective lock. The defendants denied negligence and pleaded contributory negli- gence on the part of the plaintiff. Liability w'as apportioned as to 75 per cent, on the council and as to 25 per cent. on the plaintiff. On January 13 (The Times, January 14, 1958) the Court granted leave to the plaintiff to enter notice of appeal out of time. Mr. J. J. Davis appeared for the plain- tiff; Mr. John Elton for the council. JUDGMENT The MASTER of the ROLLS said that the appeal raised a difficult question on liability. On the morning of January 14, 1956, the plaintiff with her husband left home to go to Olympia by omnibus and were on the way to the bus stop. The plaintiff visited the public lavatory owned and operated by the council, while her husband went on to the bus stop. She put a penny in the slot, went in. and then found that the door had shut and left her no means of reopen- ing it from the inside. She tried to attract attention, orally and visually, from the window but failed, and she then tried to see whether she could escape via the door or make her immured presence known through it. She stood with her left foot on the seat of the lavatory- with her left hand she seized the pipe from the cistern and put her right hand on top of the door; and her right foot rested on the toilet roll. Having got so far in the belief that she would be able by a feat not too acrobatic to get out over the door (which was in fact 7ft. high with a space 2ft. 4in. at the top) she concluded quite rightly that the feat she had envisaged was not within the bounds of her performance. She then pro- ceeded to start to regain the ground. In doing so she allowed some degree of her weight to be on the toilet roll and her balance to depend on it. Tlte toilet roll, true to its technical employment. rotated, and that unfortunately disturbed her equilibrium. She fell and received injuries. THE ISSUE The Judge had found that the corpora- tion was negligent: but the issue on the appeal was confined to the second part of his conclusion. namely, that the damage suffered was too remote from the negligent act of the council such as not to fall within the famous formula in Hadley v. Baxe'n- dale ((1854) 9 Ex. 341) of being the natural and probable consequence of the wrongful act. The questions were thus: (1) Was the damage suffered too remote ? and (2) If it was not too remote was the plaintiff her- self guilty of some degree of contributory negligence'? "ADJECIIVES INAPPROPRIATE" Mr. Elton, basing himself on Adams and the Lancashire and York Railway Company ((1869) L.R. 4 C.P. 739). had contended that what Mrs. Savers was suffering was a minor inconvenience and that she was not entitled to take a grave risk in order to put an end to that inconvenience. His Lordship thought that the adjectives were inappro- priate. The inconvenience could not be called minor nor was the risk grave. One had to apply ordinary common-sense tests. A woman went to a public lavatory and found that she was immured in it. She found after 10 or 15 minutes that the obvious and proper first means of attract- ing attention had been entirely without avail. It was an extremely disagreeable situation in which to find oneself and it would be asking altogether too much of the so-called reasonable man or woman to suppose that he or she would remain quite inactive until someone-her husband or someone else-chose to come and look for and find her. Applying the ordinary tests of reason- ableness it was neither an unreasonable thing to do nor was it indulging in grave risk for Mrs. Sayers to see whether her first impression was right, namely, whether by standing on the seat she might be able to haul herself out over the door; but it was also to be observed that she quite properly and reasonably concluded that that manoeuvre was beyond her capacity and therefore his Lordship could not accept the Judge's view that what she was doing was attempting a very hazardous undertaking of climbing out. "FIXTURE OF SLENDER KIND" In justice to the corporation and in deference to the Judge's view of the plain- tiff, it would not be right to say that she was herself free from blame, for though it was one of those cases where it was easy to be wise after the event, it was fair and right to say that in getting back to terra frma again the plaintiff should have appre- ciated that she could not properly and ought not to allow her balance to depend on anything so unstable as a toilet roll and a fixture of a somewhat slender kind. It was not a grave error and the consequences were unduly unfortunate in the circum- stances. But it was impossible to acquit her altogether-from some carelessness. The apportionment should be three-quarters of the liability to the council and one-quarter to her. The appeal should be allowed to that extent. LORD JUSTICE MORRIS and LoRD JusTicE ORMEROD delivered concurring judgments. The Court ordered that judgment in favour of the council should be set aside, and damages assessed, in default of agree- ment between the parties, by the county court Judge. Solicitors.-Messrs. Bailey, Breeze and Wyles; Messrs. Van Sommer, Chillcott, Kitcat and Clark for Messrs. Trotter, Chap- man and Whisker. Epping. LADY LOCKED IN LAVATORY ENTILED TO DAMAGES SAYERS v. HARLOW URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL