Act of God in Tort Law

Kaulik Mitra, 2083143

Research Objectives
What is Act of God?
When can the Act of God
provision be used?
What are some situations
where the provisions have been
used?
Act of God
Act of God is often considered to be a part of
inevitable accident. It is a general defense used in tort
cases.
This is used mostly in cases of natural disasters or
anything that happens that is natural and beyond the
scope of human control
 Natural disasters are rare, extraordinary and
unforeseen manifestations of natural forces, and
misfortunes or accidents caused by them are beyond
the reasonable foresight and caution of mankind
Act of God
The event must have been a result of some
natural cause which is without any human
intervention.
The event should be unforeseeable as no
human could reasonably have predicted it.
The damage caused must be in direct
relation to the unforeseeable event.
When can the Act of God provision be
used?
 The impact of common causes can be predicted
and avoided through human care. For example, for
ordinary people, the fact that rainwater seeps
through a defective roof is predictable. Hence
damage caused by that will not fall under the
defence of Act of God. However if instead there
were unprecedented rainfall of record amounts
and that causes flooding and damage, that will fall
under the ambit of Act of God.
When can the Act of God provision be
used?
For foreseeable reasons, failure to take the necessary
preventive measures constitutes negligence.
Hence it is most common that Act of God is used as an
defence in case of accusations of negligence
The occurrence of unforeseen events is the basic
element of natural disasters. Therefore, if the damage
or loss is caused by a foreseeable accident that could
have been avoided, the injured party is entitled to
compensation. It is in these scenarios that it becomes
a case of negligence
What are some situations where the
provisions have been used?
An important case in this provision is Blythe vs Birmingham
Waterworks Co. The plaintiff sued the defendant for damages
sustained due to a fault in a water plug which resulted in a
leakage. However this was a result of unprecedented levels of
frost that had not been seen in the previous 25 years. The
issue again was whether the defendants were guilty of
negligence. The court here ruled that even though the
defendants took regular precautions, the leak still happened
due to the unforeseeable levels of frost. Hence it could not be
called a case of negligence. Rather it was seen as an act of God
or something that no human could control.