Act of God (vis major) and inevitable accident
LUG-101 Law of Torts including Motor Vehicle Accident and Consumer Protection Act, Unit II: Act of God. · LLB · 60 min
Two defences for harm that the defendant could not prevent: act of God (vis major), an extraordinary operation of natural forces that no human foresight could guard against, and inevitable accident, an accident that could not have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care. The lecture covers their essentials, the leading cases (Nichols v. Marsland, Greenock Corporation, Ramalinga Nadar v. Narayana Reddiar, Stanley v. Powell, Brown v. Kendall, Holmes v. Mather, National Coal Board v. Evans, Padmavati v. Dugganaika), their place in strict and absolute liability, and a full comparison of the two. It answers 2017-18 (B1, B2), 2019-20 (A9, A10) and 2025-26 (2(c)).
Objectives
- Define act of God and state its two essentials: natural forces, and an occurrence so extraordinary that it could not be foreseen or guarded against.
- Apply the defence with Nichols v. Marsland, Greenock Corporation v. Caledonian Railway and Ramalinga Nadar v. Narayana Reddiar.
- Define inevitable accident and explain its essentials with Stanley v. Powell, Brown v. Kendall, Holmes v. Mather and NCB v. Evans.
- Distinguish vis major from inevitable accident in a comparison table.
- Explain the place of both defences under strict liability (Rylands v. Fletcher) and their exclusion under absolute liability (M.C. Mehta).
Slides
- Act of God: meaning
- Nichols v. Marsland (1876)
- Rainfall that ought to have been foreseen: Greenock Corporation (1917) and Kallu Lal (1958)
- Human agency excludes act of God: Ramalinga Nadar v. Narayana Reddiar (1971)
- Act of God in strict and absolute liability; the Indian position
- Inevitable accident: meaning and essentials
- Stanley v. Powell (1891) and Brown v. Kendall (1850)
- Holmes v. Mather (1875) and National Coal Board v. Evans (1951)
- When inevitable accident fails
- Vis major and inevitable accident distinguished
- Related short notes (2017-18 B1): injuria sine damno and damnum sine injuria
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