Breach of Duty Flashcards
what is used to assess whether a duty has been breached? (incl. case)
- Glasgow Corporation v Muir - reasonable person standard
- an objective, external test - irrelevant to D’s personal equation or idiosyncrasies
- an umbrella for more particular concerns
what are the possible concerns which could be raised in breach claims? (cases x5)
- probability of harm (Bolton v Stone)
- gravity of harm (Paris v Stepney BC)
- cost of precautions (Latimer v AEC Ltd)
- D’s purposes (Watt v Hertfordshire CC)
- D’s resources (British Railways Board v Herrington)
balancing interests in breach cases? (incl. case + quote)
Watt v Hertfordshire CC (Denning LJ) - ‘[Y]ou must balance the risk against the end to be achieved’
relevance of context in breach claims? (incl. case)
- Qualcast (Wolverhampton) Ltd v Haynes - the reasonableness of D’s conduct must be judged in light of all relevant circumstances
- Lord Denning: negligence law is receptive to ‘any proposition of good sense’ that is relevant in the circumstances
applications of the RPS in breach cases (x2)
- Nettleship v Weston - the standard of care of a person undertaking a task is that expected of a reasonably competent person (e.g. reasonably competent driver)
- McHale v Watson - children have to behave as a ‘reasonable child’ must behave; a calibrated standard of reasonableness
statute relating to breach of duty?
Compensation Act 2006 s.1 - courts ‘may’ consider whether a decision in favour of C ‘might’:
(a) ‘prevent a desirable activity from being undertaken’
(b) ‘discourage persons from undertaking functions in connection with a desirable activity
what was the purpose of that breach statute?
to address the perceived problem of blame culture
case considering the Compensation Act
Hopps v Mott MacDonald Ltd - considering the social utility of emergency infrastructure projects in post-conflict Iraq. held emergency reconstruction is a desirable activity within s.1 Compensation Act 2006
foreseeability of breach? (incl. case and quote)
- Glasgow Corporation v Muir (Lord Thankerton) - ‘All that a person can be bound to foresee are the reasonable and probable consequences of the failure to take care’
- We must not use hindsight when addressing the question as to whether there was a breach of duty - what can we expect of the reasonable person at the time?
why can we not use hindsight to assess breach?
to balance C’s interest in security and D’s interest in freedom of action
occupational stress claims under breach of duty (incl. case)
- Walker v Northumberland CC - employers are under a duty to provide their employees with a reasonably safe system of work and must take reasonable steps to protect employees from reasonably foreseeable risks in the workplace
- D must make a ‘reasonable response’
- D is not ‘an insurer against all injury’ - reasonable, not absolute
refinement to occupational stress law (incl. case)
- Hatton v Sutherland - Hale LJ’s ‘practical propositions’:
- ‘an employer is usually entitled to assume that the employee can withstand the normal pressures of the job’ (with ‘normal pressures’ differing in different occupations)
- ‘To trigger a duty… indications of impending harm … must be plain enough to any reasonable employer’
- Where D offers a confidential advice service, with referral to appropriate counselling or treatment services, a finding of liability is unlikely
what do the cases of Walker and Hatton tell us about occupational stress law?
- corrigibility - it is open to being improved/developed
- can be likened to the development of how courts determine duty
academic commentary: occupational stress
- Steele: ‘in a relatively short space of time since Walker, claims for employment-related psychiatric injury have become common.’
- ‘It can be said that since Walker, the entire shape of tort liability for psychiatric harm has altered’ (i.e. primary/2ndary victims)
breach of duty and medicine (incl. case)
- Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Commttee - doctors are held to ‘the standard of the ordinary reasonable [practitioner] exercising … that special skill’
- ‘A doctor is not guilt of negligence if he [or she] has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a reasonable body of medical men [or women] skilled in that art’
