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 stated 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

RATIO DECIDENDI:

A person is liable for false imprisonment where they impose a total restraint on another without lawful justification, and the restrained person has no reasonable means of escape (a means of escape is not reasonable if it would expose the person to a serious risk of injury or death).

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 risking a serious injury or death. A key element of this tort is that the restraint imposed must be total, distinguished from partial obstruction in Bird v Jones (1845) 7 QB 742.¹¹

FOOTNOTES:

1. Burton v Davies [1953] QSR 26 (Townley J) (‘Burton‘). ↩︎
2. Ibid 30. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. See Burton (n 1). ↩︎
7. Burton (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, a case of partial obstruction; 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. ↩︎