The Lawyers Weekly - September 9, 2011

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The duty of drivers to ensure passengers wear seatbelts

When litigating a motor vehicle injury case involving the so-called seatbelt defence, counsel should always consider whether the driver had a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure the plaintiff passenger was wearing a seatbelt. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has recognized that, in some circumstances, drivers have a duty to take reasonable care to ensure passengers wear seatbelts. If a driver has a duty to ensure seatbelt use and fails to take reasonable care to meet this duty, then he or she may be fully or partially liable for the passenger’s injuries, and the seatbelt defence

DAVID
BRANNEN

may not be available to the driver or other defendants involved in the litigation.

Since 1968, Canadian courts
have recognized that occupants
of motor vehicles owe a duty of
care to wear a seatbelt. The
rationale for requiring seatbelt
use is based on Lord Denning’s
decision in Froom v. Butcher,
[1975] 3 All E.R. 520 (C.A.).
After discussing why an occu-
pant has a duty to wear a seat-
belt, Lord Denning held that a
failure to meet this duty should
result in a finding of contribu-
tory negligence against the occu-
pant. There are two hallmarks of
Lord Denning’s approach: (1) the
defendant bears the onus of
proving the plaintiff’s failure to
wear a seatbelt caused him to
suffer greater injuries; and ( 2)
the quantum of the plaintiff’s
contributory negligence is in dir-
ect proportion to how much
worse the plaintiff’s injuries were
because of the failure to wear a
seatbelt. This method of proving
and assessing contributory negli-
gence against occupants in motor
vehicles is referred to as the seat-
belt defence.