The defense of ‘Inevitable Accident’ refers to a situation where the defendant can prove that the harm caused to the plaintiff was due to an unforeseen and unavoidable event, the occurred even after the defendant exercised reasonable care and skill.
In Shridhar Tiwari v. U.P. State Road Transport Corporation case, there was a UPSRTC bus which was being driven normally. Suddenly, a cyclist came in front of the bus and the driver had to apply sudden brake.
Since it had rained heavily a while ago, the road was also slippery and the bus did not stop in-time and crashed into another bus.
The court determined that both the drivers were driving normally and there was no negligence. And they tried their best to avoid the accident.
Therefore, this was held to be a case of inevitable accident and the defendant UPSRTC was held not liable for this act or accident.
As we can see in this case, the essential elements of this defence are absence of negligence, Unforeseeable Circumstances that a reasonable person cannot predict and there was no other alternative course of action to avoid the accident.
Inevitable accident may appear to be similar to the defence of ‘an act of god’ - the key difference is that acts of God refer to natural events like floods or earthquakes - whereas accidents are the direct or indirect outcomes of human activities.
19 сен 2024
