In many cases, the defendants are quick to claim the defence of an act of God as a defence to those cases. What updates do you want to see in this article? Liability, in this case, is simply based upon the risk involved with respect to the actions. In practice, they are referred to as two distinct defences instead of being a subset of one another. Legal Service India.com is Copyrighted under the Registrar of Copyright Act (Govt of India)�2000-2020. Nature’s blows are severely dangerous and may come as a huge shock or surprise both to the victims of the disaster and even the accused individuals or tortfeasors. The author in this article has discussed the concepts of Inevitable accident and Act of God as defences in the Law of Torts along with their modern view. For the torts of negligence and strict liability, the defense of “act of God” may be invoked. There are many defences to a tort, such as necessity, Inevitable accident, Plaintiff’s wrongdoing, Volenti non fit injuria, etc. | Powered by. In those cases, the defendant will not be liable in law of tort for such inadvertent damage. Before an act of God may be granted as a defence the defendant has to prove himself to have done everything that a reasonable and a prudent person could do in such a scenario. An act of God is a general defense used in cases of torts when an event over which the defendant has no control over occurs and the damage is caused by the forces of nature. Sir Frederick Pollock defined an inevitable accident as an accident which is not avoidable by any precautions, a reasonable man could have expected to take.

An act of God has a much wider domain as it is a principle which makes God the defendant and hence it declares the accident to be truly out of the human control and reasonableness.

These defences have been formulated from time to time to keep up with the basis of imposition of tortious liability on a person. Why that is the case is because the essence of this defence is that the harm is caused by an act/event perpetuated by the forces of nature, which is beyond the control of both the defendant and the claimant. An act of God is an accident caused by the working of extraordinary natural forces whereas the effect of ordinary natural causes, such as a  water leak through the roof or ceiling may be foreseen and may also be avoided by taking certain reasonable actions, failure of these actions i.e. This article is written by Aditya Dubey, student of Indore Institute of Law, Indore(M.P.). Case Law: Weaver v. Ward 80 Eng Rep 284 (K.B. recognized that liability was not absolute and is subject to certain exceptions that were established later on. An act of God is one which has been there ever since the existence of our planet Earth, we have been witnessing natural calamities since the existence of mankind, these include, Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, etc. There are certain principles which are used to counter claims for compensation.

defined an inevitable accident as an accident which is not avoidable by any precautions, a reasonable man could have expected to take. If by an “act of God” one’s possessions are thrown into another’s property, the liability to bear all expenses for removing the possessions shall be on the first party, although not responsible for the damage caused. In this case, the defendant Weaver shot the plaintiff when his musket discharged while their team of soldiers was skirmishing with another team, the defendant pleaded that he had accidentally and by misfortune and against his will, injured and deeply wounded the plaintiff, which resulted in the same tort of trespass of which the plaintiff complained. The plaintiff objected and the court held the defendant’s plea bad. In this case, A bus of UP SRTC was travelling through a village where a cyclist had suddenly out of nowhere come in front of the Bus and in order to save that cyclist the driver applied the brakes as a result of which the Bus skidded on the road as the surface of the road was wet at that time and its rear portion struck against the front portion of Bus No. Both of these defences are very similar in their nature and in fact by the definition of vis major, it is considered to be a type of an inevitable accident but, a careful study of these two concepts will definitely differentiate the two as both of these are very distinct forms of escaping liability in the law of Tort. intervention of man.
1616). An inevitable accident is one which could not be possibly prevented by the exercise of ordinary care, caution and skill and hence it does not apply to anything which either of the parties might have avoided. the precautions that are necessary contribute to negligence. Hence it was made as a part of the rule. Such activities necessarily involve a risk of serious harm to other people, which cannot be eliminated by the exercise of reasonable care and are not in the scope of common usage. There are two ways of viewing this situation: The act of God either supersedes the defendant’s negligence.

An act of God is so extraordinary that reasonable care would not avoid the consequences that it produces, hence, the injured party has no right to the damages which they might receive. An act of God is defined as a direct, sudden, insanely violent, natural, and irresistible act of nature, one which could not by any amount of care have been foreseen, or if it has been foreseen, could not be avoided by any amount of care by any individual. The supreme court, and High courts have power to issue writs in the nature of habeas corpus , quo... A natural necessity proceeding from physical causes alone without the These counterclaims or defences are used to evict those citizens from tortious liability who have been unfairly been implicated with wrong claims imposed on them. Inevitable accident in no form is a defence in the case of strict liability.

You must have JavaScript enabled in your browser to utilize the functionality of this website. © Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved. In the case of trespass, the plaintiff needed to allege only the fact that the defendant had done harm with the force and arms, rather than the harm is done negligently. - Receive all the forms you need completed for your State. In such occurrences, lives are lost, properties are destroyed or significantly damaged when the forces of the nature strike harshly and suddenly. The concept of Force major/ Vis major/ Act of God. Negligence is basically the breach of an obligation or a duty or a responsibility to act with care towards something, or, it is the failure to act as a reasonable and a prudent person would act under the same or similar circumstances.
The author in this article has discussed the concepts of Inevitable accident and Act of God as defences in the Law of Torts along with their modern view.

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The defendant’s actions did not cause the damage since the injury would have occurred anyway in both cases. an accident which is physically unavoidable and can’t be prevented by human skill or foresight. It is an accident which could not have been occasioned by According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts, an actor cannot evade liability for a harm that would have primarily resulted from negligent conduct but was aggravated by the extraordinary operation of a force of nature, through the defense of “act of God.”  However, the defendant will not be liable if his/her negligence was not a contributing factor to the harm sustained. However, if the Court finds that the defendant was negligent in exercising reasonable care and caution, which enhanced the degree of harm, the defendant will be liable for the full amount of damages.

This doctrine has been widely extended to such activities which are considered abnormally dangerous or hazardous. Learn More! Where both negligence and the act of God have a role to play, the traditional.

In the past cases, the defence of inevitable accident used to be very relevant in actions for trespass when the older rule was that even an innocent trespass was actionable unless the defendant could prove that the accident was caused due to it being inevitable in nature. The law of torts has been evolving throughout its existence.

In order for a plaintiff to recover damages, the failure of foreseeability must be the proximate cause of an injury and an actual loss must occur. Whereas an act of God is an accident which is caused by the operations of the extraordinary natural forces and its effects include total destruction or loss at a very high scale as these are unpredictable and cannot be controlled. Weekly Competition – Week 4 – September 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 2 – October 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 3 – October 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 4 – October 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 1 – November 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 2 – November 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 3 – November 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 4 – November 2019, Weekly Competition – Week 1 – December 2019, Are Movie Titles Protected under Copyright Law, Concepts of Marriage and Divorce under Hindu and Muslim Law, Climate change and its effects on food security, human migration, wildlife and biodiversity. , student of Indore Institute of Law, Indore(M.P.). The law of torts has been evolving throughout its existence. capitalism. Here the defendant was not held liable at it was a sheer case of an inevitable accident. Both of these defences are based on the reasonable foreseeability, here the question is not whether a similar event has occurred before or not, but whether the risk that this mishap may occur is foreseeable or not. These counterclaims or defences are used to evict those citizens from tortious liability who have been unfairly been implicated with wrong claims imposed on them. and it is not subjected to any exceptions of the rule of strict liability.

To afford the defence of vis major, there must be an immediate or proximate cause (, ) and not just a cause had it not existed might never have led to the damage caused or complained of (. human agency but preceded from physical causes alone.