Crime Doesn't Pay – Criminal Enterprise And Negligence

How should the law treat a claim in which the claimants are part of criminal enterprise, but in which the negligence of the defendant also played a part?

Beaumont & O'Neill v David Ferrer[2016] EWCA Civ 768

The Issue

It's often said that crime doesn't pay, but the question the English Court of Appeal had to consider here was whether the maxim ex turpi causa non oritur actio (that a claimant cannot seek a legal remedy if it arises from his own criminal act) applied in what was a relatively minor crime of failing to pay a taxi driver.

The facts

On 27 July 2009, Josephn Beaumont and Lewis O'Neill, both 17, decided to go into Manchester City centre with four other friends. It had already been decided by the group as a whole that they would "jump the taxi" into Manchester; in other words, once at their destination, they'd run off from the taxi without paying.