Case No.:

(KHC-CS-676-1958)

Court:

The High Court

Issue No.:

1960

Principles

·  Negligence—Piled sacks of cotton-seed falling on labourer—Res ipsa loquitut—Personal injuries—Quantum of damages

The plaintiff was employed by the defendants as a casual labourer in their factory in Khartoum North. The plaintiff was sieving cottonseed when without warning and for no apparent reason a pile of seed sacks fell on him, causing personal injuries. Nobody was on the sacks or in their vicinity at the time of the accident. In an action by the plaintiff claiming special damages of £S.14o and general damages
Held: (i) The maxim res ipsa loquitur applied and since the defendants were unable to disprove negligence they were liable. Scott v. London and St. Katherine Docks (1865) 3 H. & C. 596 followed. Cole v. De TraIlord [1918] 2 KB. 523 distinguished.
(ii) The plaintiff was entitled to £S.14o special damages and £S.6oo general damages.
Semble: The English law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, 1948, is applicable in the Sudan.

Judgment

(HIGH COURT)

KUWA KUKU v. AFRICAN OIL INDUSTRIES

(KHC-CS-676-1958)

Action

Advocates: Ahmed Ibrahim…… . For plaintiff

                 Ahmed Gumaa ……….for defendants

June 30, 1960. Tewfik Cotran J. : —The facts of this case, as believed by the court, are as follows: The plaintiff was employed by the defendants, the African Oil Industries, as a casual labourer in their factory in Khartoum North. He had only been employed four or five days before the accident happened. The accident took place on June 15, 1958, in the following circumstances: The plaintiff was sieving cottonseed with another labourer. Near where the plaintiff was working there was a pile of seed sacks stacked one over the other. For no apparent reason the pile of sacks fell on plaintiff. Nobody was working on top of the sacks and the evidence is clear that all work on piling it up had ceased and there was nobody in the vicinity.

The plaintiff and his colleague had absolutely no warning of any impending danger. The floor area of the place in which they were working was 4 m. X 3 m. or thereabouts. It was a reasonably large space area in which to sieve cottonseed. The plaintiff is of course in no way to blame for the accident. In my opinion this is one of the instances of the maxim res ipsa loquitur which was explained in Scott v. London and St. Katherine Docks Company (1865) 3 H. & C. 596, 601, as follows: “Where the thing is shown to be under the management of the defendant or his servants, and the accident is such as in the ordinary course of things does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation, by the defendant, that the accident arose from want of care.” In the above case six bags of sugar fell on a customs officer’s head as he was passing. It was held that the defendant must disprove negligence on his part in order to escape liability.

The case before me is similar. It does not fall within the principle laid down in Cole v. De Trafford [1918] 2 K.B. 523, because in De Trafford’s case I think the case turned on the question whether an employer has provided a safe system of work in his garage when an employee was injured by a falling piece of glass. The defendants produced no evidence to discharge the burden placed on them by the operation of this maxim.

But even if the maxim ces ipsa loquitur is not applicable it is as clear as anything can be that the falling of the sacks must have taken place because the employer or his other servants either did not stack them well one over the other, or made the pile so high as to become unsteady from sheer height, where even a gust of wind might topple them. Whether the negligence was due to the defendant himself in failing to provide adequate storage for the sacks or it was due to the negligence of other fellow servants the defendants are liable to the plaintiff, for the doctrine of common employment has been abolished by the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, 1948. Since this Act was designed to change the basic rule of the common law and is not really a procedural or technical statute it is immediately adopted by the Sudan courts under, section 9 of the Civil Justice Ordinance.

The injuries that the plaintiff sustained were fairly extensive. He was admitted to hospital on June 15, 1958. He had intestinal haemorrhage and was operated on after a few days. He had to have blood transfusion, several kinds of injections, sedatives and morphine. He was under severe pain after the accident and the operation. In addition to the internal abdominal injury, his left thigh was fractured transversally. The plaintiff was dischaiged from hospital about two months later but had to go there as an outpatient for several months thereafter. The final medical report on plaintiff shows that, there is a slight shortage deformity of the left leg weakness of thigh muscles and limitation of movement. He has a permanent disability assessed at 25 per cent. I have seen plaintiff in person and I think it is out of the question that he can possibly work as a labourer any more with a short leg. He says that he cannot lift a “Jardal,” and though this may be an exaggeration, yet the plaintiff has ffered a lot and can never be a normal man again.

On the other hand he was only a simple labourer earning about 20 Pt. basic per day. He is about 20. He can probably still work on light duty, e.g., as a Ghafir and lead a useful though painful life.

Taking everything into consideration I think the plaintiff is entitled to the special damages he claimed (L.s140) which were satisfactorily proved by the person who spent them (plaintiff’s relative who is a well-paid bank official), and to £S.600 as general damages, i.e., £S.740 in all.

The defendants must pay court fees, which, however, will be paid into the couj chest, as plaintiff was suing in forma pauperis.

(Judgment for plaintiff)

* Application for revision (KHC/Rev/467/60 and AC/Rev/2/61) summarily dismissed.