The High Court dismissed John Heaphy’s personal injury claim against three defendants after finding that he helped organise and continued to take part in a dangerous pursuit between two cars before a crash in Cork that killed two passengers.
In a judgment delivered on 7 March 2018, Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon found that the pursuit, which involved high speeds, aggression and revenge, was the effective cause of the crash. The court held that the claim failed under the ex turpi causa defence, which in exceptional circumstances can prevent recovery where a claim arises from the claimant’s illegal conduct. It also concluded that it could not find that the defendants owed Heaphy a duty of care in the circumstances.
The collision happened at the entrance to Hollywood Estate, Hollyhill. A black Volkswagen Golf driven by Philip Murphy struck the rear of a red Ford Mondeo driven by James Simms. The Mondeo then hit a house wall. Derry O’Callaghan and Cornelius John Dolan, passengers in the Mondeo, died. The judgment records that Murphy and Simms were convicted of dangerous driving causing death; it gives conflicting dates for those convictions, identifying 16 December 2017 in the evidence summary and 16 December 2010 in the court’s findings.
The court accepted evidence that the Mondeo had begun to wobble and veer left before impact, and that both vehicles were travelling at very high speed. It found that a crash was highly probable even without the collision between the cars. The court also accepted evidence that Murphy was angry and sought revenge as he followed the Mondeo.
The judge rejected important parts of Heaphy’s account as not credible. She found that he arranged for Simms to drive the Mondeo in pursuit of Murphy’s Golf, despite knowing Simms was uninsured. He had an opportunity to leave when the vehicles stopped on Churchfield Way Lower but chose to continue. He was not wearing a seat belt and had brought his young child in the car.
The Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland argued that Heaphy’s conduct amounted to a joint illegal venture and that he had contributed to his own injuries. It also relied on his failure to wear a seat belt and on an exclusion in the MIBI agreement concerning passengers who knowingly travel in an uninsured vehicle. Heaphy accepted that he could not recover under that agreement for injuries caused by Simms’s driving, but argued that the exclusion did not bar a claim concerning Murphy’s vehicle. The court dismissed the claim against all three defendants on the basis of the illegal venture; it did not determine the claim through an assessment of damages or apportionment of liability.