Negligence: Legal causation Flashcards
Lecture 5
What is novus actus interveneiens? (new intervening events)
- Defendant’s actions set a motion of chain of events leading to claimant’s loss
- Questions raised about subsequent events linking back to the original act
Do negligent interventions break the chain of causation? Provide examples of this.
- They do not break chain; it is a matter of degree
- Case law stems from multiple collisions {Rouse v Squires, Knightly v Johns}
- Some medical negligence examples {Webb v Barclays Bank, Wright v Cambridge Medical Group}
Provide more information on the case of Knightly v Johns [1982] in more detail.
- Issue: is the negligent driver liable for severe injuries caused to the motorcycle officer? (or were police inspectors instructions so negligent to break chain)
- 2 motorcycle officers riding wrong way down tunnel to close traffic off (in tunnel)
- Defendant not liable for injuries as chain of causation linking to him is broken by negligence
What are deliberate interventions? (e.g., criminal act by a third party)
- More likely to break the chain of causation than a negligent act
- Unless the defendant assumed a duty to protect the claimant from the consequences of such intervention {Stansbie v Troman [1948]}
- Or defendant had control over or responsible for the malevolent 3rd party {Home Office v Dorset Yacht Club [1970]}
What about regarding the claimant’s own actions breaking chain of causation?
- May break chain if they entirely neglected their own safety {McKew, Spencer, and Reeves case}
- Potential overlaps with defences of volenti non fit injuria
What happens regarding non-tortious events (e.g., ‘acts of nature’)
- Conceivable that intervening event may be a natural phenomenon; although there is sparse authority on this {Carslogie Steamship case}
- Leaving claimant with no one to sue
- Today, Carslogie case better to explain scope of risk for duty assumed
What is the main question regarding remoteness of damage?
Should the defendant be liable for every conceivable consequence of their negligence?
What can we learn from the case of Re Polemis?
- Defendant liable to all losses which is extreme (including events leading to main event of plank being dislodged)
- Extreme consequences on heavily factual analysis that focus on directness of harm
- Courts held act of dropping plank itself was negligent
What can we learn from the case of The Wagon Mound (No 1) [1961]?
- Bunkering oil negligently released into Sydney Harbour, with oil accumulating around wharf (claimants advised welding working could continue)
- Lord Simmons came up with new requirements: type of harm, manner harm occurred and extent of harm (following flashcards) (aspects of foreseeability)
What questions are raised for the type of harm? (aspects of foreseeability)
- Was the harm of a type that could have been foreseen?
- Or, was it of a fundamentally different nature?
- Relevant case: Bradford v Robinson
What questions are raised for the manner in which the harm occured? (aspects of foreseeability)
- Did the harm come about in a very convoluted or unpredictable manner?
- Hughes v Lord Advocate -> “to demand too great precision in the test of foreseeability would be unfair to the [plaintiff]”
What questions are raised for the extent or magnitude of harm? (aspects of foreseeability)
- Is the extent of the harm ‘off the scale’ in terms of what could reasonably have been foreseen?
- If damage broadly of same time that could have been predicted, fact that it is vastly greater than one would have expected may not extinguish liability {Vacwell Engineering v BDH Chemicals}
- Feeds into “eggshell skull” principle (“take your victim as you find them”)
Does the ‘egg-shell skull’ principle apply? {based on case of Smith v Leech Brain and Robinson v Post Office}
- Individual suffers burn injury at work and burnt injury led to cancer (but courts still stay take victim as you find them)
- Postman suffers allergic reaction after biten by dog
What is the significance on the role of policy? (indirect but foreseeable damage)
- Harm may have come about in a roundabout way, but one could say it was still foreseeable {Wagon Mound link}
- Courts find policy reasons for ruling that loss should be regarded as too remote {e.g., McKew, Lamb, Wieland}
Outline the SAAMCO approach?
- Relates to whether the loss fell within the scope of duty assumed by the defendant {South Australia Asset Management Corp}
- Losses which fall within scope of duty may be considered too remote {BPE Solicitors}
Outline Lord Hoffmann’s mointaineer example?
- Mountaineer suffering knee injury asking to go to expedition (doctor negligently says yes)
- Mountaineer injured in accident not related to knee (he would have not gone if advice had been correct)
- Hoffman: doctor’s duty confined to question of knee (does not need to underwrite all risks, only about knee not expedition itself)
