Case Law
< back to case lawDunnett -v- Railtrack [2002] EWCA Civ 302
Susan Dunnett kept three horses in a field beside the London to Swansea railway line. They escaped onto the line and were killed. Mrs Dunnett lost her claim at first instance, and in granting her permission to appeal, Schiemann LJ strongly encouraged an attempt at alternative dispute resolution to settle the dispute, but the defendants turned down the suggestion point blank. They felt they had a cast iron defence, and so the Court of Appeal found. But when Railtrack applied for their costs, the request was refused because their lordships observed that a skilled mediator might have been able to achieve an amicable solution to the dispute by means other than encouraging the payment of money.
So Railtrack did not get their costs because they refused ADR, even though their belief in their case was well founded.
Interestingly, each member of the court received a letter from Mrs Dunnett after the appeal, which included:
"In finishing I would like to reinforce your own knowledge and experience of Alternative Dispute Resolution. If at any point Railtrack would have said that they regretted what had happened, we would have dropped the whole matter. This case was never about money..."
That is significant, since experience in mediations is that a case may often be settled by means which a court could not order, and an apology is a good example of such other means.