Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Law of Tort - General Negligence
- To establish negligence, 3 things must be proven: A duty was
owed, This duty was breached and that the breach caused the
damage.
- Duty of care was originally determined using the
neighbour principle set out in Donoghue v
Stevenson but was later developed into a more
thorough 3-part test set out in Caparo v Dickman:
- 'Part 1 - Reasonable Foreseeability
- The damage must be a
reasonable foreseeable
consequence of the
Defendants action
- Foreseeable:
Jolley v Sutton,
Kent v Griffiths
- Part 2 - Sufficient Proximity
- There must be sufficient
proximity between the Claimant
and defendant, either by
relationship, or space and time.
- McLoughlin v
O'Brian - There
was proximity
by relationship
- Bourhill v Young -
No proximity in
either relationship,
space or time
- Part 3 - Fair, Just and Reasonable
- There could be a
policy reason which
would make it unfair,
unjust or unreasonable
to apply a duty of care
- Hill v Chief Constable
of West Yorkshire - No
duty of care applied as
it would open the
floodgates of litigation
- Once duty of care is proven, the defendant but
then be shown to have breached this duty. To
Breach a duty of care, one must fall below the
standard of care expected of the reasonable man.
- The standard of care is a line
which can be raised or
lowered by risk factors:
- Special
Characteristics
of the
Defendant
- Ordinary people must be held to
the standard of the reasonably
competent man, but
professionals are held to the
standard of professionals
- Bolam v Friern - Set out
Profesionals test
- Nettleship v Weston - Learner
drivers held to the standard of
competent drivers
- Wells v Cooper - Ordinary man doing
DIY held to the standard of an ordinary
reasonably competent man doing DIY
- Special
Characteristics
of the Claimant
- Paris v Stepney borough council
- SoC raised due to previous
injury
- Size of the risk
- Roe v Ministry of health - no
breach of duty if risk wasn't
known to the defendant
- Haley v London
borough of Hackney
- Larger risk means
higher SoC
- Benefits of the risk
- Watt v Hertfordshire County
Council - Was a suffiecent
benefit to excuse risk taken
- Were all practical
precautions taken?
- Latimer v AEC Products
- No breach as
precautions were taken
- Once the defendant has breached their
duty of care, it must be proven that the
breach caused the damage done
- Causation
- 'But For' test
- Barnett v Chelsea &
Kensington Hospital
- Novus Actus Interveniens
- MPC v Reeves
- Multiple causes
- Fairchild v Glenhaven
Funeral services
- Remoteness
- Type of damage
- Hughes v Lord Advocate -
was foreseeable that a
paraffin lamp would cause
some form of damage
- Bradford v Robinson Rentals -
was foreseeable that C would be
injured from low temperatures
- Foreeability
- Wagon mound -
Damage was not
foreseeable
- Thin skull rule 'Take the
victim as you find him'
- Smith v Leech Brain
- 'reasonable man' - defined in Blythe v Birmingham waterworks