Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Reasonable Man on the Clapham Omnibus

The man on the Clapham omnibus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The man on the Clapham omnibus is a descriptive formulation of a reasonably educated and intelligent but non-specialist person — a reasonable man, a hypothetical person against whom a defendant's conduct might be judged in an English law civil action for negligence. This standard of care comparable to that which might be exercised by "the man on the Clapham omnibus" was first mentioned by Greer LJ in Hall v. Brooklands Auto-Racing Club (1933) 1 KB 205.

The first reported legal quotation of the phrase is in the case of McQuire v. Western Morning News[1] a libel case, in which Sir Richard Henn Collins MR attributes it to Lord Bowen, who had died nine years earlier.

It is derived from the phrase the bald-headed man at the back of the Clapham omnibus, coined by the 19th century journalist Walter Bagehot to describe the normal man of London, so used because Clapham in south London at the time was a non-descript commuter suburb and was seen to represent "ordinary" London. Omnibus is a now archaic expression for a public bus, but would have been common usage amongst the judiciary at the beginning of the 20th century.

(Click Here) Reasonable Man on the Clapham Omnibus

... Unfortunately, the judiciary are behaving akin to village idiots at the moment, that even a reasonably educated and intelligent non-specialist paralegal has a higher IQ and case management experience: - my oral hearing was allegedly cancelled a week or so ago: but that did not stop the nonsense upstairs, downstairs and sideways! Oral hearings appear to take the form of talking to the walls ... this contemporary modernity democracy lark is just nazism - get real - the reasonable person these days is better doing street justice: the reason for the cancellation of the actual oral hearing on 14 January (which never got listed and was a bit hush hush - phone the court at 3.00 pm the previous day to find about about the 1/2 hour listing the next day and I don't even know the judge's name or the room etc or that it will be 1/2 hour or WHAT RULE OF COURT THESE ORAL HEARINGS OF APPEALS/JUDICIAL REVIEW REQUESTS occur under: because it was not obviously stated on the court correspondence), ... nor provided by Respondents who were cc'd in and managed to send in a "Chronology" minus all references to Skeleton Arguments including supplementary's and second supplementary's - or any mention of the very real conflict of interest they have concerning their Counsel and Doughty Street Chambers - which is not reported to the Bar YET!, but the Law Society are aware as are the Police! Going through papers in preparation for the oral hearing I did notice, the Official Solicitor appears to be complicit with Respondent's solicitor (Beachcrofts) having been requested to obtain a Litigant Friend to my litigant in person status as assistance in this action (the nonsense is unbelieveable in paperwork, however, the OS did inform she was attempting to source funding/public funding but ... somehow the only source she tried appears to be from Respondent's solicitor's previous law firm - now there' s a thing especially as the answer came back "no" and the OS duly told the Master to effectively "bugger off for a second time" - but hey I tried everyone on the list anyway as it happens (and noteably some firms are on the list and don't even manage to practice in the practise area!). No takers then for pro bono work. However, of concern is that the Legal Aid Fund did not feature in the request either or at all - because of the Woolf Reforms allegedly! The case is currently before the Royal Courts but is awaiting a hearing date and has a public interest issue in it (or two or three or four ...!!!) To those evesdropping either try each other, or the Ministry of Justice and Woolf/Susskind/Straw and everyone outed on this blog - village idiots you are. Anticipating the judge is not trying to dispose of the case by reason of becoming bankrupt over 13 years! There is a reason why I am a litigant in person. Now if the judge wants to send round a police officer I can have some fun discussing mens rea and actus reus - mind treat.

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