The Court of Appeal has dismissed Felix Moorehouse’s appeal against the rejection of his personal injury claim over an accident in a Wheatfield Prison workshop that amputated four fingers on his left hand.
In a judgment delivered on 31 July 2020, Ms Justice Costello said the High Court was entitled to dismiss the claim after finding that Mr Moorehouse had not proved, on the balance of probabilities, that the accident happened as he described. The appeal court upheld that decision.
Mr Moorehouse was injured on 27 November 2008 while attending a prison welding course. The GEKA cropping machine’s guide guard was absent, and the High Court found that a properly fitted and adjusted guard would have prevented his hand from reaching the blades. It also found that Mr Moorehouse did not remove the guard, that workshop supervision was absent when the accident happened, that he had not been told that day not to use the machine, and that staff should have used a lockout device.
The High Court said those matters amounted to breaches of statutory duties if the accident occurred in the way Mr Moorehouse alleged. But it rejected key parts of his account, including that his hand was resting on a steel bar. It found that his hand was palm upwards when the blade descended and relied on evidence about damage to his glove that contradicted his description of the accident. The judge also rejected claims that methadone or illicit drugs materially caused the accident.
On appeal, Mr Moorehouse argued that the proven safety failures supported an inference that the defendants caused his injuries, even if the precise mechanism he described was not accepted. The defendants opposed the appeal.
Ms Justice Costello said courts can draw reasonable inferences where direct evidence of causation is unavailable. But she distinguished cases where an injured person could not recall or describe an accident. Mr Moorehouse had given a detailed account, and the trial judge had rejected its central features, including in light of evidence accepted from the defendants’ engineer.
In those circumstances, she said, inferring causation would require the court to speculate about an alternative mechanism and would contradict the trial judge’s findings. The burden remained on Mr Moorehouse to prove that the defendants’ negligence caused the injury; the defendants did not have to establish an alternative account that absolved them.
The appeal court found no basis to interfere with the trial judge’s assessment of the engineer’s evidence and dismissed the appeal. The High Court’s dismissal of the claim therefore stands.