Duty of Care Flashcards
Donoghue v Stevenson
Atkin dictum: love your neighbour. In law your neighbour is somebody who you ought reasonably to have contemplated as being affected.
Concept of forseeability and proximity to establish a duty of care.
Caparo v Dickman
Step 1: look at precedent
Step 2: is there sufficient forseeability and proximity
Step 3: fair, just, reasonable that the law should impose duty upon one party for others benefit
- No general duty to prevent pure economic loss
- commercial context - fair, just, reasonable to expect pursuers to engage own professional advisors
Bourhill v Young
- pregnant fishwife
- forseeability dependent on circumstances
- here, not forseeable that someone in Mrs B’s situation would have been affected
- outwith range of proximity
Hines
- fire-alarm in office building
- duty placed on managing agents of building
- sufficient proximity between tenants and agents
- forseeable that actions had bearing on property interests
Mitchell v Glasgow City Council
- murder of next door neighbour
- not fair, just, reasonable to impose duty of council
- they have landlord duties for large popn. of tenants
- only in some circumstances can 3rd party harm be actionable
- no breach of art 2 - council do not have resources to prevent such crime
“Nicholas H”
- not fair, just, reasonable to pin liability on classification society of ship
- already complex insurance structure in place
Maloco v Littlewoods
- fire damaged neighbouring proprietors
- whilst third party prevention is recognised, it was not found here
- littlewoods not liable for third party actions
- impossible to know who the third party was
Thomson v Scottish Ministers
- pursuers daughter murdered by prisoner on short term release
- prison service obliged to give short release
- nothing distinct or special about this case to displace general rule on 3rd parties
Home Office v Dorset Yacht
- home office had special duty of supervision
- damage was forseeable
- duty imposed
Carmarthenshire CC v Lewis
- duty of close supervision of 4yr old breached (caused collision running onto road)
- duty of care established
Kazier v Scottish Ministers
- prisoner assault
- prison had duty to supervise prisoners in gym
Barret v MoD
- affixiated own vomit
- once officers had taken man into their care they had assumed responsibility to assume charge
“Opogo”
- duty to rescue?
- no obligation or absolute duty to rescue
- owner not liable as he had attempted to rescue
Spartan Steel v Martin
- negligent cutting of electricity
- pure economic loss of profits of steel not yet in process was non recoverable
Dynamco
- cannot recover for profits unless loss arose from direct damage
- electricty service covers too many people here
Leigh v Sillavan
- no negligence here
- party must own property at time of damage occuring
Reavis v Clan Line Steamers
- sea collision, 8 orchestra members died
- no duty of care owed in resect of death to others (cannot own an orchestra i.e. people)
- non recoverable pure economic less
Murphy v Brentwood DC
- LA approved building plans including defective foundations
- Held: no pure economic loss
- not fair, just, reasonable to impose duty so as to cast them as guarantor to house owners for quality of builders work
- can only recover what flows from breach of relevant contractual duties
Hedley Byrne v Heller
- banked escape liability due to disclaimer removing responsibility
- landmark case recognises negligently provided advice can trigger liability: misrepresentation
- advice for purpose
- advice will be communicated
- likely to be acted upon for purpose
- acted upon to advisee detriment
Smith v Bush
- indirect misrepresentation
- disclaimer to seek private advice was deemed unreasonable
- surveyor providing info for professional purposes assumes responsibility for mortgagee and purchaser
Spring v Guardian Assurance
- reference from previous job negligently misleading
- damage of misleading reference is forseeable
- duty on previous employer established - fair, just, reasonable
- obvious proximity in relationship
Henderson v Merrett Syndicates
- shares
- time bar for contractual action had run out
- duty of care owed by managing agents depsite them being indirect investors
White v Jones
- proximity and forseeability between legal exec. and father
- daughters claim was allowed - unjust if J had not been held accountable to those lost
- failure to reinstate beneficiaries
Junior Books v Veitchi (unique cf. Realstone Ltd)
- pursuer engaged contractors to build factor who advised V for flooring
- held: sufficient proximity between parties to allow JB to sue in delict
- usually pure economic loss
Alcock v Chief Cons
- 16 conjoined cases. Hillsborough Disaster
- close tie of love and affection
- present at accident or immediate aftermath
- psychiatric injury - direct perception of accident or immedaite aftermath
Page v Smith
- deemed primary victim
- not in damaged car but accident retriggered ME
- irrelevant that precise psych. damage was unforseeable
- defendant owed duty of care
McLoughlin v OBrien
- held that mother was secondary victim
- sufficient proximity in time and place (2 hour at outer limit of aftermath)
- reasonably forseeable that illness would be triggered from seeing her family
Young v Macvean
- Alcock not satisfied - not present when event occured and psychiatric injury was not direct result
- claim rejected for personal injury
- car gym class
Robertson v Forth Road Bridge
- Alcock criteria extremely tightly construed
- does not extend to employees
- no distressing features of incident
White v Chief Cons
- police officers not in range of forseeable physical injury
- psychiatric injury was from aftermath
- only seconadry victims - duty not established
Anderson v Christian Salvesen
- pursuer lorry driver - involuntary cause of his colleagues death
- in principle, could give rise to primary victim
X v Bedfordshire CC
2 essential enquiries
- is your case justiciable in law of negligence?
- is a duty of care owed?
- conjoined cases of LA failure of statutory duty to safeguard children
- not fair, just, reasonable to extend duty to all those that may be owed duty
- unfair and disruptive to pin liability on one particular agency
Robinson v Chief Cons
- R injured during arrest
- no duty for omissions or prevention of 3rd party action cf. exceptions
- SC held that police had duty
- forseeable that mismanaged arrest may cause injury
Hill v Chief Cons
- no duty of care on police
- duty does not extend to protecting persons from other individuals of community
Michael v Chief Cons
- general omissions - no liability
- 999 call logged as grade 2 before being upgraded
- exec. were there has been a representation/reliance
AJ Allan v Strathclyde Fire Board
- fire service duty is to not make situation worse
- pursuers case in negligence irrelevant
Kent v Griffiths
- Duty of care owed once call with personal details accepted/assumed responsibility to attend promptly
- Once in care of emergency services, duty of care to patient arises
Stovin v Wise
- car driver, poor visibility, collided with motorbike
- no duty on road authority for road users
- statutory duty did not mean duty to other road users
Macdonald v Aberdeenshire County Council
- duty did not extend to improving safety - reasonable driver should have seen
- killed passenger in road collision
Rabone
- no art2 engagement in medical malpractice
- on appeal,
- breach of article 2 which merited an award well above the lower range of damages
- Wide discretion extending time limit
- operational duty on the state to take reasonable steps to protect from a real and immediate risk of suicide
Hall v Simmons (ENG)
- immunity from duty?
- English barristers no longer immune, conduct of civil and criminal proceedings
Wright v Paton Farrell
- Scottish solicitors and advocates immune, conduct of criminal proceedings
