Moot notes - Example of mooting PDF

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Moot: My Lord, as has already been stated from my learned senior, my name is Soumaia Djellak and I appear as junior counsel for the appellant. I will now address the second ground of appeal my lord, on that the crown court had failed to direct the injury on causation and that in fact the contractor’s decision to use highly flammable material in the faulty tower cladding had broken the chain of causation. Before I go on with my submissions my lord, I will begin with directing the definition on legal causation. Legal causation is that the defendant’s conduct must have made a substantial contribution to the result. I will link this to my submissions, My lord I have four submissions to make If it pleases Your lordship I will begin with my first submission As the facts states, the Coroner’s report on the Ivory Tower Fire was left on John’s desk for a while, however he did not get around to reading it. As John is a director of the housing department, he is very busy completing his duties. This is the reason why he hadn’t followed up any of the coroner’s recommendations. Under causation it is stated if the defendant’s conduct element did not cause the result, he is not liable of the crime. John’s omission of not reading the report did not cause the result crime. My lord if you could please turn to tab 3 to look at the case of R v Dalloway. In this case the defendant was driving a horse and a cart down a road without holding on to the reigns. A three-year old child ran in front of the cart and was killed. The defendant was not liable as it was established that even if Dalloway had been holding up reins tightly, he would not have been able to stop the cart before it killed the child, the death of the child was not foreseeable. Referring this back to John, even if John did read the report, he would not have been able to stop the fire as this was the contractor’s fault. The contractors are the ones responsible with the safety implementations specifically with installing of highly flammable cladding. My lord, john let a trusted company to have full rein of the work, entierly as they saw fit, means that John could not foresee the company’s motive of using cladding which is cheap. John’s intentions after the first fire was of course not for it to happen again, but due to him thinking it was a one-freak accident, he thought it happened by chance. As john left the construction to the contractors, to make sure they implement good material to avoid another accident. If your lordship has no further questions I will now move to my second submission. In this second submission I will be stating that there isn’t a breach of duty as Johnson was unaware of the dangers due to him not reading the report. This means he did not create a

dangerous situation. It is only a breach of duty only when the defendent becomes aware of the danger he had created. I kindly ask my lord if you can please turn to tab 4 to the case of R v Evans. In this case, the appellant was accountable for the death of her sister, Carly Townsend, from heroin overdose. The appellant gave her heroin alongside with her mother. After a while Carly was developing symptoms of an overdose. The appellant and her mother decided not to seek help as they thought they would get into trouble. Carly then died. This leads to the appellant being convicted for gross negligence manslaughter due to creating a dangerous situation. Referring this to John, he was unaware of the dangers, unlike the appellant in the case r v Evans, meaning he had no idea to what had caused the fire. Like I mentioned before my lord, He had thought the Ivory Tower Fire was a one-off freak accident. The contractors created a dangerous situation as they were aware of what cladding they were implementing. So therefore, Johns omission of not reading the report did cause the result crime. If your lordship has no further questions I will now move on to my third submission If I can kindly ask my lord, if you could please turn to tab 5 to the case R v Jordan. In this case, the defendant stabbed the victim. He was in hospital and was given anti biotics. However, after showing an allergic reaction to the anti-biotics , he was then given excessive amounts of intravenous liquids. He then died of pneumonia. The victim died of the medical treatment and not the stab wound. The defendant was not liable for his death. In conclusion it was held that the third party’s conduct was sufficiently gross as to break the chain of causation. Chain of causation was not broken by John, but by the third party, the contractors. The contractors conduct was installing the unsafe cladding and their failure to install a sprinkler system broke the chain of causation. The contractors providing the cladding should have known better to what options are suitable as it is there duty. The contribution of the third party was significant as to being the cause of the fire, the company broke the chain of causation. If your Lordship has no further questions I will now move on to my last, fourth submission Another case I’m going to use in order to prove that it was the contractors who are liable for the result crime, is the case R v Cheshire. If I can kindly ask my lord, if you could please turn to tab 5 to the facts of the case R v Cheshire. In this case, the defendant shot the victim in the stomach and thigh. The victim was then taken to the hospital where a tracheotomy was performed. Six weeks after, the victim suffered breathing problems due to the tracheotomy scar and died. Even though the defendant was found guilty of murder, the victim did not die from the wounds but died from the tracheotomy that was performed.

In Cheshire, they established that the defendant must have made a significant contribution to the deaths but in Johnsons case he did not contribute to these deaths, it was the company as they used flammable cladding which John was unaware of. The contractors decision and contribution to use highly flammable cladding was a separate independent act that was so potent in causing the death that the appellants failure of reading the report on his desk is deemed insignificant. My Lord, it is for these reasons and also those given by my senior counsel that I would urge you to allow the appeal. If Your Lordship has no further questions, that concludes the case for the appellant....