negligence as law

1. Negligence
Revision

2. What is tort?
• Tort is a civil wrong.
• There are four types:
• Nuisance
• Occupiers liability
• Negligence
• Reynold v Fletcher

3. Negligence.
Owing a duty of care, previously only when a
one of a specific circumstance applied.

4. Donoghue v
Stevenson.
Mrs Donoghue couldn’t sue them
because she didn’t pay for the drink.
Instead she sued the manufacturer.
This went to the house of Lords where
Lord Atkins said choose one overarching
principle.
Necessary to place limits fpr who can
claim for a wrong and what they can
recover.

5. The neighbor
principle.
The rule that you must love your neighbour
becomes in law.
You must not injure your neighbour, and the
lawyer questioned who is my neighbour?
You must take reasonable care to avoid any
act or omissions which you can reasonably
foresee would be likely to injure your
neighbour.

6. The defendant must
owe the claimant a ….
Duty of care.
The Defendant must.... Breach that
duty
The claimant must
suffer loss.....
Factual
causation
The loss must not be
to remote.....
Remoteness of
damage
There must be no …..
Defence

7. Caparo v Dickman.
Reasonable
foreseeability.
There Must Be....
Proximity between a
claimant and a
defendant.
Fair, just and reasonable
to impose a duty of care
on the defendant.

8. In some situations a duty of care is
automatically established.
Whitehouse v Jordan Doctor to patient
Condon v Basi Sportsman to other
participants
Nettleship v Weston Drivers to passengers
and other road users.
Walker v Northumberland Employer v Employee

9. Reasonable foreseeability.
• In Bourhill v Young a motorcyclist was driving too fast he crashed into a car and was killed. Mrs
Bourhill was unloading fishes on to the tram whilst being eight months pregnant. She heard the
incident but didn’t see it. She saw later blood on the road which caused her to suffer nervous
shock this led to her baby to be stillborn.
• Mrs Bourhill sued the motorbike executives claiming that they owed her a duty of care and
that they had been negligent.
• The court held it was not reasonably foreseeable as the area she was in meant she was not in
any danger and the motorcyclist did not owe her a duty of care
• In Kent v Griffith the claimant suffered from an asthma attack. The ambulance arrived 40
minutes late, as a result of this she suffered a respiratory arrest which led to permanent brain
damage.
• The court held it was reasonably foreseeable that the claimant could suffer if the
ambulance was late so they did owe her a duty of care.

10. Proximity between
claimant and
defendant.
• This makes it fair and reasonable that they
owe each other a duty of care.
• In Bourhill v Young she was not owed a duty of
care because there was no proximity between
the claimant and defendant.
• In Mcloughin v Obrien a mother
suffered depression after seeing her family
injured during a car accident. She could not
press charges as she was not present during
the time of the accident.
• The house of lords reversed
this decision saying she was present in hospital
to see the injuries of her family
Proximity is
the
relationship
between the
two parties

11. Fair, just and reasonable.
• In Hill v West Yorkshire police the mother of the last victim of the Yorkshire ripper
sued the police on behalf of her daughter claiming had they not been so negligent
in their investigation her daughter would not be dead.
• Although her claim failed due to the lack of proximity the house of
Lords considered if it was fair, just and reasonable to impose duty of care on the
police to the victims of a crime.
• Lord Keith said it was not fair, just and reasonable to impose duty of care to the
police.as it would do little improve policing standards.
• In capital v counties the officer in charge of putting the fire out in the claimants
home ordered they turn the sprinklers off causing the fire to spread further.
• It was held that despite this usually not being fair, just and reasonable the situation
was different as the sprinklers had been turned off