Negligence - Paper 2

Question 1

What are the three elements of negligence?

Answer 1

Duty of Care, Breach of Duty, Breach must have Caused the Damage

Question 2

What is Stage 1 of Negligence?

Answer 2

Defendant must owe the Claimant a duty of care

Question 3

Which principle was established by Lord Atkin in Donoghue v Stevenson?

Answer 3

The Neighbour Principle

Question 4

What is meant by the Neighbour Principle?

Answer 4

D must take care not to injure their neighbour, and neighbour is anyone closely and directly affected by D’s actions

Question 5

What was the decision in Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire?

Answer 5

If there is an obvious duty of care, no need for the three stage test in Caparo

Question 6

What type of situation will the Caparo test be used?

Answer 6

When the duty of care isn’t obvious, a novel situation

Question 7

What is Stage 2 of Negligence?

Answer 7

D must have breached their duty of care to C

Question 8

What is the definition of breach from Alderson B in Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks

Answer 8

Doing something a reasonable man wouldn’t do, or doing something a reasonable man would so (objective test)

Question 9

What are the three categories D will fall into to determine the standard they should have met?

Answer 9

Expert/experienced person

Learner/inexperienced person

Child/young person

Question 10

What is the standard of an expert or someone who possesses a particular skill?

Answer 10

The standard of other reasonably competent professionals (Bolam)

Question 11

What is the standard expected of someone inexperienced or a learner?

Answer 11

Someone experienced and competent (Nettleship v Weston)

Question 12

What is the standard expected of children?

Answer 12

A reasonable child of a similar age (Mullins v Richards)

Question 13

What do risk factors do?

Answer 13

They either raise or lower the standard of care required

Question 14

What does the probability of harm risk factor mean?

Answer 14

The reasonable person does not need to take precautions against very small risks, but needs to against bigger risks (Bolton v Stone)

Question 15

What is meant by the seriousness or magnitude of the risk?

Answer 15

The court needs to consider how serious the injury could potentially be, the bigger the risk of a serious injury, more care needs to be taken (Paris v Stepney Council)

Question 16

Explain the cost and practicality of precautions risk factor

Answer 16

If the cost of taking precautions to eliminate the risk is too great, D may not be in breach (Latimer v AEC)

Question 17

What is meant by social utility of the risk?

Answer 17

If there are benefits for society from the risk, there will be no breach (Watt v Hertfordshire Council)

Question 18

What is Stage 3 of Negligence?

Answer 18

The breach of duty must have caused the damage to C

Question 19

Explain factual causation

Answer 19

It uses the ‘but for’ test: but for D’s actions or omissions, would have the damage have occurred? (Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital)

Question 20

Explain legal causation

Answer 20

It relates to the remoteness of the damage, meaning if the damage was unforeseeable then it may be too remote and D will not be the legal cause (The Wagon Mound No 1)

Question 21

What was the ruling in Hughes v Lord Advocate?

Answer 21

D need not predict the precise way in which the injury was caused so long as injury of the same type was foreseeable

Question 22

Explain the thin skull rule

Answer 22

D must take their C as they find them (Smith v Leech Brain Co)