Causation

Question 0

Baker v Willoughby

Answer 0

Where C’s injury is the product of two successive torts the second tort is not to be treated as obliterating the causal effect of the first tort.

Question 1

Bailey v MoD

Answer 1

If a cause made a more than negligible contribution to C’s injury it will be deemed a material contribution.

Question 2

Jobling v Associated Diaries

Answer 2

A “vicissitude of life” may displace D’s liability for C’s injury - to hold otherwise would have violated the principle that C should not be made better off than she was before the tort.

Question 3

Corr v IBC Vehicles

Answer 3

If C’s illness and the ensuing consequences were produced by the initial injury D will, subject to remoteness considerations, be causally liable for that as well.

Question 4

Gray v Thames Trains

Answer 4

D will not be regarded as having caused C injury which is brought about by C’s own criminal conduct (this would contradict the criminal law ruling that C was responsible for his own conduct).

Question 5

Fairchild v Glenhaven

Answer 5

Where there are multiple breaches of duty materially increasing the risk of D’s injury and it is scientifically impossible to show which one of them caused it on a balance of probabilities each breach is to be treated as materially contributing to the disease.

Question 6

McGhee v NCB

Answer 6

For reasons of policy and justice the person who should suffer from the inherent evidential difficulty in cases of material increases in risk should be the creator of the risk, who must be taken to have foreseen the possibility of damage.

Question 7

Barker v Corus

Answer 7

The Fairchild exception arises wherever it is impossible to prove on a BoP that but for D’s negligence, C’s injury would not have been caused by ANOTHER POTENTIAL CAUSATIVE AGENT OPERATING THE SAME WAY. Thus Fairchild applies to all single agent cases.

Question 8

Wilsher v Essex HA

Answer 8

Where there are multiple agents at work Fairchild is not applicable.

Question 9

Hull v Sanderson

Answer 9

Fairchild only applies where it is inherently impossible, because of scientific limitations, to show on a BoP what caused C’s injury.

Question 10

Gregg v Scott

Answer 10

If on the BoP C would have suffered the same loss had D not been negligent, C cannot recover for loss of a chance.

Question 11

Chester v Afshar

Answer 11

If C can show that but for D’s negligent failure to warn her of a risk in a medical procedure, she would not have had the procedure on the day that she did, this will suffice as proof of causation (CONTENTIOUS, but this was on policy grounds as the majority held the purpose of tort law was to “vindicate rights” and wanted to vindicate C’s right to informed consent to medical treatment)

Question 12

Allied Maples Group

Answer 12

If C’s loss depended upon the decision of a 3rd party and C shows there was a substantial chance of success but for D’s negligence C may recover for loss of a chance of success even if C cannot show that she would have succeeded on the balance of probabilities.

Question 13

The Wagon Mound

Answer 13

Overturning the Re Polemis rule on directness as “illogical and unjust”, a new test of remoteness was introduced - was the harm suffered by Ca reasonably foreseeable consequence of D’s negligence?

Question 14

Wagon Mound No.2 (2 precedents)

Answer 14

1. The foreseeability test of remoteness applies also to nuisance.
2. A consequence that is unlikely to occur may still be sufficiently foreseeable if D acted unreasonably because foreseeability is distinct from probability and is a relative concept.

Question 15

Stewart v West African Terminals

Answer 15

If the consequence was one “within the general range of which any reasonable person might foresee and was not of an entirely different kind to what one would anticipate” it is not too remote a consequence.

Question 16

Hughes v Lord Advocate

Answer 16

As long as the type of injury was foreseeable it is immaterial that the precise manner of its infliction was not.

Question 17

Czar ikon

Answer 17

In tort, as opposed to contract, “D will be liable for any type of damage which is reasonably foreseeable as likely to happen, even in the most unusual case, unless the risk is so small that a reasonable man would in the whole circumstances feel justified in neglecting it.”

Question 18

Tremain v Pike

Answer 18

If C’s injury is exceedingly rare (e.g. Weil’s disease which could ONLY be contracted via rat urine) greater precision may be required in identifying the kind of damage hat was foreseeable.

Question 19

Calvert

Answer 19

The question is whether the scope of the DoC in the circumstances embraces damage of the KIND which C claims to have suffered.

Question 20

Gorris v Scott

Answer 20

If D’s DoC was to prevent one kind of damage and an entirely different kind of damage eventuates he will not be liable for it.

Question 21

Aneco (contrast)

Answer 21

If D undertakes to give general advice on the wisdom of entering into a transaction he will be liable for all the foreseeable consequences of negligence in that undertaking (contrast Banque Bruxelles Lambert where the duty was to give specific information and D was only liable for the consequences of that information)

Question 22

Quinn v Leatham

Answer 22

Intended consequences are never too remote.

Question 23

Scott v Shepherd

Answer 23

Intentional wrongdoers are liable for all foreseeable consequences of their wrongdoing.

Question 24

Bradford

Answer 24

If the extent of the injury was not foreseeable it is sufficient that it fell into a foreseeable category of harm.

Question 25

Page v Smith

Answer 25

D takes C as he finds him, including weaknesses which exacerbate the damage in an unforeseeable way.

Question 26

Lagden v O’Connor

Answer 26

C’s financial state may engage the eggshell skull principle if his impecuniosity leaves him with NO CHOICE but to incur the relevant loss.

Question 27

Robinson v Post Office

Answer 27

If the injury is exacerbated by a combination of C’s existing abnormality and an external force which foreseeably and naturally intervenes, the eggshell skull principle is engaged.

Question 28

Carlosgie

Answer 28

If a natural event independent of the breach of duty causes damage to C, the breach of duty must have rendered C more susceptible to damage by that event to have caused the damage. This is so even if the natural event would have caused C no damage but for the breach of duty.

Question 29

The Oropesa

Answer 29

To be a novus actus a 3rd party’s intervention must be “unwarrantable, a new cause which disturbs the sequence of events…capable of description as unreasonable or extraneous or extrinsic”

Question 30

Lamb v Camden LBC (contrast)

Answer 30

The courts are reluctant to find D liable for the willful wrongdoing of others even where the wrongdoing was foreseeable. If D’s wrongdoing is extreme the courts may, however do so (Ward v Cannock Chase).

Question 31

Haynes v Harwood

Answer 31

If D is under a duty to guard against T’s wrongdoing T’s wrongdoing will not be remote just because it is willfully inflicted.

Question 32

McKew

Answer 32

If C’s act was sufficiently unreasonable in the circumstances it may constitute a novus actus.

Question 33

Emeh

Answer 33

The court will not condemn C’s behavior as unreasonable simply because she does not take the course which is cheapest for D - the threshold of unreasonableness is a high one.

Question 34

Reeves v MPC

Answer 34

If C’s willful conduct is precisely that which D has a duty to guard against it will not be a novus actus though it may establish contributory negligence.

Question 35

Corr v IBC Vehicles

Answer 35

If D’s negligence causes D to develop psychiatric illness and C subsequently kills himself, by operation of the eggshell skull principle D will be liable for his death.

Question 36

SAAMCO (negligent valuer)

Answer 36

The scope of a negligent valuer’s DoC will determine the level of damages payable. If the duty was wide (eg general advice) he must pay all losses including those resulting from market fluctuations. If the duty was confined to valuation his damages will be either the lender’s actual losses or the difference between the actual and reported valuation, whichever is lower.

Question 37

Bonnington Castings

Answer 37

C only has to show that D’s negligence made a material contribution to his injury on the BoP. He does not have to show that on the BoP D’s negligence was the sole cause of the disease.