Mc Comiskey v McDermott

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 26 July 1974
• Date: 26 July 1974
• Docket Number: [1969. No. 3181 P.]
• Court: Supreme Court

(S.C.)

Mc Comiskey

and

McDermott

Motor rally - Driver and passenger acting as a team - Passenger injured in accident - Driver's duty to passenger - Whether passenger had waived his legal rights - Sequence of questions on jury's issue paper -Civil Liability Act, 1961 (No. 41), s. 34, sub-s.1 (b).

The plaintiff and the defendant were travelling at night as passenger and driver in the defendant's motor car while taking part, as a team, in a motor rally in which the defendant was trying to maintain an average speed of 35 m.p.h. and to arrive at various checkpoints promptly at the times specified by the organisers of the rally. Having driven round a corner on a muddy laneway, the defendant was faced with an obstruction on the laneway ahead and downhill. The defendant believed that he could not stop his car before reaching the obstruction and so he drove his car into a ditch where it overturned and the plaintiff was injured. The dashboard of the defendant's car carried a notice stating that passengers travelled in the car at their own risk. The plaintiff claimed damages in the High Court for the negligence of the defendant. At the trial the jury, in answer to the first question on the issue paper, answered that the plaintiff had impliedly agreed to waive his legal rights in respect of injury caused by the negligence of the defendant; in answer to the second question on the issue paper, they found that the defendant had not been negligent. On appeal...