Council sues bus f irm for £450k over Clarke’s ‘inaccurate’ reference
COUNCIL chiefs are suing a bus company for £450,000 f or f ail i ng t o provide an accurate job reference for bin lorry crash driver Harry Clarke.
The council worker and former First Glasgow driver passed out at the wheel of the 26-ton vehicle, which mounted a pavement and killed six people in the city’s Queen Street in December 2014.
Now Glasgow City Council is suing First Glasgow, claiming it failed to disclose that Mr Clarke lost consciousness at the wheel of a bus in 2010. It is seeking a total of £446,012 from the transport company.
Judge Lord Ericht yesterday arranged for a four-day hearing to take place at the Court of Session next month.
Student Erin McQuade, 18, and her grandparents 68-year-old Jack and 69-year-old Lorraine Sweeney lost their lives in the incident.
The other victims were Stephanie Tait, 29, Jacqueline Morton, 51, and 52-year-old Gillian Ewing.
Crown Office lawyers decided not to prosecute Clarke on the basis that he had a medical condition and there was no evidence to show he broke the law.
The families of those who lost their lives in the tragedy later tried to raise a private prosecution against Clarke. They argued that Clarke had made ‘misrepresentations’ about his medical history to the DVLA and to his employers.
However, senior judges did not allow the prosecution to proceed.
Glasgow City Council also suffered a setback in its action against First Glasgow after another hearing last year at the Court of Session. Its legal team sought to recover a total of £903,714.40 from First Glasgow.
In those proceedings, the council’s lawyers claimed the alleged failure to disclose the information about Mr Clarke passing out meant the firm breached a duty of care to the dead pedestrians.
However, Lord Ericht ruled against the local authority.
In a judgment issued by the court, Lord Ericht said there was no legal basis for the company to be held responsible for breaching a duty of care for the dead pedestrians.
He wrote: ‘The question of whether the giver of an employment reference owes a duty of care to a third party, being neither the employee nor the new employer, for omitting i n the reference to warn the new employer of a risk of physical injury to the third party is a novel one. I was not referred to any authorities or academic discussion on the issue.
‘In my opinion, in the current case, there is no such proximity as would give rise to a duty of care.’
Yesterday, Lord Ericht arranged for a four-day ‘proof’ to take place in the new year. The proceedings will be conducted using video conferencing technology.
His decision came during a short hearing which was held on the sixth anniversary of the tragedy.
The proceedings will commence on January 12.
‘Duty of care to pedestrians’