Exam Revision Flashcards
Benjamin Cardozo
I sought certainty. I was oppressed and disheartened when I found that the quest for it was futile
Torts are…
Civil wrongs for which the law will provide a remedy. They will be enforceable against one party, to the benefit of another
Peter Cane
Tort law is purely protective, does not lay down rules
Negligence elements
Doc
Breach
Causation
Damage
Remoteness
Defences
Urbanaski v Patel
Surgeon removed patients only kidney causing death, surgeon liable to the patients father who donated his own kidney to save her life
Watson v British Boxing Board of Control
BBBC had a duty to be proactive - Lord Phillips
Caparo test
Lord Bridge’s 3 requirements
1. Reasonably foreseeable harm
2. Proximity
3. Fair, just and reasonable
Lord Reed’s approach in Robinson
Courts will follow precedents in established categories, only relying on the caparo test in novel cases
Relevant considerations: cost of taking care
Latimer
Relevant considerations: gravity of harm
Paris v Stephney
Relevant considerations: probability of harm
Read v Lyons
Factual causation
But for test - Barnett v Chelsea and Kensington
Legal causation
Real, direct or effective cause - Stapley v Gypsum Mines
The principle of de minimus non curat lex
The law does not take account of inconsequential or trifling harms
Remoteness
A line between recoverable and irrecoverable loss
Oversees tankship
Damage must be a reasonably foreseeable type
Lord Atkins in Donoghue
Neighbour Principle “you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour”
John Fleming on Lord Atkins neighbour principle
‘A sacrosanct preamble to any judicial disquisition on duty’
- contains noticable ambiguity
Lord Oliver in Caparo on proximity
-‘Proximity is no more than a label’
-Proximity is not a ‘definable concept’
-Proximity is used pragmatically by judges
Incremental development
“That the law should develop novel categories incrementally and by analogy with established categories - Brennan J, Sutherland shire council v Heyman
Guido Calabresi
‘Accident costs are less burdensome when spread across the community’