Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
John Haley is one of the unluckiest and most courageous claimants to be found in the law reports. When he was about 40, he was hit in the eye by a hard ball which rendered him completely blind. Undaunted, Mr Haley thereafter trained and became a telephonist employed by the London County Council, and worked at the Education Office in Greenwich. Every weekday, he left his home in Charlton, walked along Charlton Church Lane to the bus stop using his white cane, and then caught a bus to work. He walked the particular pavement on his journey to the bus stop for seven years, and in the words of Lord Denning MR, ‘knew every inch of it’. But then, he tripped over a punner hammer which had been left on the pavement by the London Electricity Board …

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Rachael Mulheron, ‘Commemorating Haley at 60: a critique of the statutory treatment of disability in negligence’ [2025] Journal of Personal Injury Litigation (3) 130-147.