Negligence: General Principles of Duty of Care (part 1) Flashcards
The tort of neglience elements are?
- Duty of Care
- Positive act
- reasonable foreseeability that doing the act will result in injury
What is Violenti non fit injuria?
No harm is done to the willing
What is meant by reasonable foreseeability?
Did D know that their acts could have an effect of harming C, was it a reasonably foreseeable action that occurred
What is meant by personal injury?
Other considerations apply to the other types of harm
- Economic loss
- Psychiatric harm
What must the claimant show in a negligence claim?
- Duty of care
- Breach of the duty of care
- Causation of damage
- Damage is not too remote
Does D owe C a duty of care from a historical approach?
Anns v Merton establishes by lord Wilberforce a Two stage test, one being the proximity of relationship between the damage and defendant and second is whether they should be negative?
The modern approach brings in what key case?
The Caparo test sets out a very key test which wasn’t meant to be such
it sets out
- the harm was reasonably foreseeable
- relationship of proximity
- fair just and reasonable to impose a duty of care
What happened in Heaven v Pender?
The owner of dry ropes had failed in his duty to continue the actual condition of the ropes
What happened in Donoghue v Stevenson?
- The snail
- Neighbourhood principle meant that the manufacturer was liable for the problems caused
What happened in Anns v Merton?
- Involved the structural damage of a block of flats
- ## The council was held liable even though it was for loss of economic
What is meant by reasonable foreseeability?
- ## That the reasonable person in D’s position have reasonably foreseen C as a victim of D’s Negligence
What happened in Haley v London Electricity Board and what is the threshold that attaches itself to it?
- Haley v London Electricity Board
Blind man trips and subsequently becomes deaf due to the work mens negligence. Lord Reed explained: ‘I find it quite impossible to say that it is not reasonably foreseeable that a blind person may pass along a particular pavement on a particular day’
What happened in Marc Rich & Co AG v Bishop Rock Marine (1996)?
- Crack in hull of the ship
- This was bad
- Therefore there was problems. After they had suggested going to a dry dock and getting all of the repairs, it was decided that because of the cost they would do some short term repairs on the boat
- It subsequently sunk and took down 17.6 million with it
What happened in White v Jones (1995)
A man, Mr White, wished to change his will so as to leave £9000 for the benefit of his two daughters, who he had chosen to exclude at the point of his will’s initial drafting. His solicitor was the defendant, Mr Jones, who received Mr White’s request but took a sizable time to actually implement it. In this time period, Mr White passed away and the will remained unchanged. Subsequently, Mr White’s daughters, the claimants, brought an action against the defendant, contending the amount of time it took for him to fulfill the request amounted to professional negligence and attempting to claim the amount that they would have received had the will been altered.
What case established the Neighbourhood principle?
Donoghue v Stevenson (1932)
