Obiter

Burton v Davies [1953] QSR 26

In Burton v Davies,¹ the defendant’s actions of driving at high speed preventing the plaintiff from leaving the vehicle, constituted false imprisonment — as the plaintiff had no reasonable means of escape.

COURT: Supreme Court of Queensland (Townley J).

FACTS:

1. At a party, the plaintiff met the defendant and accepted his invitation to drive her home.²
2. The defendant failed to stop at the plaintiff’s house, continuing on at a fast rate of speed, until the plaintiff’s threats to scream induced him to stop.³
3. The plaintiff sued the defendant for damages, inter alia, for false imprisonment.⁴

ISSUE:

Whether the defendant’s actions constitute false imprisonment of the plaintiff?

DECISION:

Townley J held that the defendant’s conduct amounted to the wrong of false imprisonment.⁵ In driving at a fast rate of speed, the defendant prevented the plaintiff from alighting the truck.⁶

Townley J said at 30:

If I lock a person in a room with a window from which he may jump to the ground at the risk of life and limb, I cannot be heard to say that he was not imprisoned because he was free to leap from the window.⁷

LEGAL SIGNIFICANCE:

Burton v Davies [1953] QSR 26 addresses false imprisonment and the concept of total detention in tort law.⁸ Whether there is total detention depends on whether there is a reasonable means of escape.⁹

In this case, the plaintiff had no reasonable means of escape from the defendant’s moving vehicle when her only means of doing so was to jump.¹⁰

A key element of this tort is that the restraint imposed must be total, as distinguished in Bird v Jones (1845) 7 QB 742.¹¹

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FOOTNOTES:

1. Burton v Davies [1953] QSR 26 (Townley J). ↩︎
2. Ibid 30. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. See ibid (n 1). ↩︎
7. Ibid (n 1) 30. ↩︎
8. Carolyn Sappideen, Prue Vines and John Eldridge, Torts: Commentary and Materials (Thomson Reuters, 13th ed, 2021) 56. ↩︎
9. Ibid. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. See Bird v Jones (1845) 7 QB 742; Cf The Balmain New Ferry Co Ltd v Robertson (1906) 4 CLR 379 (High Court); Robinson v Balmain New Ferry Co Ltd [1910] AC 295 (Privy Council), a case of partial restraint, failed in both instances. ↩︎