Negligence: Damage

Question 1

What four things must be considered to prove that the breach caused damage?

Answer 1

Factual causation, intervening acts, thin skull rule and remoteness of damage

Question 2

Factual Causation is proved through which test?

Answer 2

The ‘but for’ test.

Question 3

Give a case example for the ‘but for’ test

Answer 3

Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee.

Question 4

Intervening Acts must be what in order to break the chain of causation?

Answer 4

Serious and separate from the original act of the defendant.

Question 5

Which case highlights an intervening act?

Answer 5

Knightly v Johns

Question 6

The thin skull rule means what?

Answer 6

That the defendant must take their victim as they find them.

Question 7

Give a case example of the thin skull rule.

Answer 7

Smith v Leech Brain

Question 8

What is the legal principle from the Wagon Mound no1 case?

Answer 8

That the specific type of damage must be reasonably foreseeable else the damage will be too remote.

Question 9

What is the legal principle from Hughes v Lord Advocate?

Answer 9

If the type of damage suffered is foreseeable, then it will not matter if it happened in an unforeseen way.

Question 10

Which case shows that if the outcome was an unknown possibility to science then the damage will be too remote?

Answer 10

Doughty v Turner Manufacturing Company