## Facts

- A pedestrian (Hall) was injured on a public street when a horse-drawn cart driven by Fearnley struck him, knocking him down and breaking his leg.
- Hall alleged Fearnley drove too close to the pavement on a narrow, curved part of the street and failed to use due care.
- Fearnley’s trial position was that Hall slipped or fell from the pavement into the roadway and the cart ran over him without fault by the driver.
- Hall sued in trespass for direct personal injury.
- Fearnley pleaded only “not guilty,” without any special plea asserting accident or other justification.
- The jury returned a verdict for Fearnley, and Hall moved for a new trial based on pleading and trial-direction error.

## Issues

1. Whether, in trespass for direct personal injury, a defendant pleading only “not guilty” may introduce facts that effectively admit the contact but seek to avoid liability by asserting the plaintiff slipped into the cart’s path and the defendant was without negligence.
2. Whether “inevitable accident” is available under “not guilty,” and, if so, whether an accident attributed to the plaintiff’s slip qualifies absent a “superior agency” beyond human control.

## Decision

- The court set aside the defendant’s verdict and granted a new trial.
- The court held that, under “not guilty” in trespass, the defendant could not rely on an excuse that the plaintiff slipped into the roadway and the defendant unintentionally ran over him without negligence.
- The court indicated that only an “inevitable accident” caused by “superior agency” could be shown under “not guilty” without special pleading.

## Legal Principles

- In trespass, the general issue (“not guilty”) permits a defendant to deny committing the act complained of (or deny responsibility for it), but does not permit reliance on a confession-and-avoid justification that admits the impact and seeks to excuse it.
- A defense asserting that the plaintiff’s own movement created the collision and that the defendant acted without fault is treated as a special matter of excuse that must be specially pleaded.
- “Inevitable accident” is admissible under “not guilty” only in the narrow sense of an accident arising from a “superior agency” beyond human control, not merely an absence of negligence coupled with an ordinary mishap.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the defendant’s accident-without-fault explanation functioned as an unpleaded justification in trespass and was not available under a bare “not guilty” plea, except where the defendant shows a narrowly defined inevitable accident caused by superior agency.


Hall v. Fearnley, 114 Eng. Rep. 761 (Q.B. 1842)