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PI Brief Update

Child Car Seats and Contributory Negligence - Tim Kevan

01/05/12. Lawyers for a wrong-doer are never short of ways of ways of pointing the finger of blame elsewhere and Emma Hughes (by Anne Marie Armstrong) v Estate of Dayne Joshua Williams, deceased (Defendant) and Louise Williams (Third Party) [2012] EWHC 1078 was just such a case. In that case a mother had fitted her car with two child seats. One was a forward facing child seat and one was a booster seat. In the case there was not a big dispute that if the child had been in the child seat the injuries sustained would only have been minor. However, the child was in the booster seat despite the fact that this went against the instructions set out by the manufacturer of the seat in terms of age, height and weight. Sadly more serious injuries were sustained and the Defendant argued that the mother should be liable for a contribution of 25% pursuant to the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978..

Blair J first of all examined the law in relation to seatbelts and children. Specifically, the matter was...

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The opinions expressed in the articles are the authors' own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand. 

Professional advice should always be obtained before applying any information to particular circumstances.

Excerpts from judgments and statutes are Crown copyright. Any Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of OPSI and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland under the Open Government Licence.