Odger's English Common Law

496 NEGLIGENCE.
The fact that the defendant had no desire or intention to
injure the plaintiff affords no defence to an action brought
for bodily injury caused by negligence or want of skill,
although the jury will, no doubt, take this fact into con-
sideration in determining the amount of damages to be
awarded.
(i.) No man will be held responsible for an accident which
was in no way his fault or the fault of some one for whose
negligence he would be responsible, except under some
express statutory provision. 1 The defendant may, therefore,
set up as his defence that the occurrence complained of was
an inevitable accident and in no way due to any negligence
on his part. 2
Eeasonable care is not shown when, after
notice of danger at a particular spot, no inquiry is made as to
its existence and extent and no warning is given. 3
(ii.) Another defence is that the injury was not due to any
negligence on the part of the defendant, but was brought
about by the action of forces over which he had no control,
and which it was impossible for him to foresee or overcome. 4
" The ordinary rule is that when the law creates a duty and
the party is disabled from performing it without any default
of his own by the act of God or the King's enemies, the law
will excuse him; but when a party by his own contract
creates a duty, he is bound to make it good, notwithstanding
any accident by inevitable necessity." 5
Thus, where damage was done to a pier through the violence of the wind
and waves by a vessel whose master and crew had been compelled to leave
her, the owners of the vessel were held not liable. This case had to be
decided by reference to the common law liability, which was held not to
have been extended by the Legislature. " If a duty is cast upon an indi-
vidual by common law, the act of God will excuse him from the perform-
ance of that duty. No man is compelled to do that which is impossible.
It is the duty of a carrier to deliver safely the goods entrusted to his care ;
but if in carrying them with proper care they are destroyed by lightning or
swept away by a flood, he is excused, because the safe delivery has, by the
i Holmes v. Mather (1876), L. R. 10 Ex. 261 ; Stanley v. Powell, [1891] 1Q.B.
86 ; and see the Employers' Liability Act, 1880 (43 & 44 Vict. c. 42), and the
Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 (6 Edw. VII. c. 58).
2 Vaughan v. Taff Vale By. Co. (1860), 5 H. & N. 679.
s R. v. Williams (1884), 9 App. Cas. 418 ; but see Hudson v. Bray, [1917] 1 K. B.
520, and Morrison v. Sheffield Corporation, ['917] 2 K. B. 866.
* Boa v. Jubb (1879), 4 Ex. D. 76.
8 Per cur. in Nichols v. Marsland (1876), 2 Ex. D. at p. 4.