Jobling v Associated Dairies [1982] AC 794
Facts
D (the employer) had breached his statutory duty towards C and this resulted in C sustaining an injury after a fall in 1973, while working at D’s butcher shop; C became partially disabled and successfully claimed for future loss of earnings A further fall followed and incapacitated C for heavy work C additionally suffered from a condition known as myelopathy, which however, was in no way related to the two accidents suffered by C, though rendered him unfit for work
Legal Issue
Should future earnings damages for the workplace injury continue after an independent disease would have made the claimant unable to work in any event?
Held
The House of Lords held that the later myelopathy had to be taken into account when assessing the claimant's loss. The disease was unrelated to the employer's wrong and would have disabled him independently. Damages for lost earning capacity could not therefore assume continued working ability after that point. The court distinguished Baker v Willoughby, which concerned a later tortious injury, and treated ordinary illness as a vicissitude affecting the claimant's likely future. The earlier injury did not cease to have occurred; rather, the defendant was not responsible for earnings the claimant would have lost even without that injury. This is a damages and counterfactual analysis, not a universal rule about every later event.
⭐ Legal Principle
Independent natural illness which would have caused the same future earnings loss must be considered in assessing damages. Jobling distinguished a supervening disease from Baker's later tortious injury and prevents compensation for income the claimant would have lost even without the defendant's wrong.
Significance
Jobling is best understood through the comparison between the claimant's actual position and the position without the tort. Natural illness can shorten the period of compensable earnings loss. It should not be summarised merely as a new act breaking causation, because the original injury and its earlier losses remain attributable to the defendant. The contrast with Baker illustrates why the character and effect of the later event matter to a fair assessment.
Common exam questions about this case
Why did the later disease reduce the earnings claim?
The disease would independently have prevented work, so earnings after that point were not lost because of the employer's injury. Compensation compares the actual position with the position without the tort. Ignoring the illness would award income which the claimant would not have earned in either situation.
Did the original employer cease to have caused any injury?
No. The employer remained responsible for the original injury and the losses attributable to it. Jobling limits the period or extent of particular future losses in light of an independent event. It does not erase the earlier tort or retrospectively make the original treatment and disability unrelated.
Why did Baker not require the disease to be ignored?
Baker involved a later wrongful injury rather than ordinary natural illness. Jobling declined to extend that reasoning to the disease, treating it as a vicissitude relevant to the claimant's future. An answer should explain that distinction rather than treating the two decisions as interchangeable formulas.