November Questions Flashcards
In Halliwell v Johannesburg Municipal Council the Appellate Division established the rule – known as the ‘prior conduct doctrine’ – that a municipality could be held liable for harm caused by its negligent omission if and only if it had by a prior negligent act created a new source of danger and the omission in question was an omission to take reasonable steps to guard against that danger.
true
- In Minister of Forestry v Quathlamba the AD extended the ‘prior conduct doctrine’ from municipalities to the state, by holding the Minister of Forestry liable for the negligent omission of some of his employees, on the ground that those employees had by their prior negligent act (starting what was supposed to be a controlled burn on state land) created a new source of danger and that the omission in question (the failure to control the burn) was an omission to take reasonable steps to guard against that danger.
False, the rule is not called the prior conduct doctrine.
In Cape Town Municipality v Bakkerud the Supreme Court of Appeal rejected the idea that the ‘general or relative immunity’ of municipalities (which entailed that they could be held liable for their failure to repair or warn only if the conditions posed by the ‘prior conduct doctrine’ were satisfied) had survived the Appellate Division’s judgment in the case of Minister van Polisie v Ewels. In the Court’s view, the ‘legal convictions’ test introduced in Ewels was therefore also applicable to the omissions of municipalities.
True
In Minister of Safety and Security v Van Duivenboden the majority judgment (by Nugent JA) held that the ‘constitutional norm of accountability’ required the recognition of a ‘legal duty’ to avoid negligently causing harm on the police officers in question, so that their omissions, if negligent, would also be ‘unlawful’ (or wrongful) and thus ‘actionable’.
True (carried forward in Carmichele)
In Herschel v Mrupe Van den Heever JA upheld the appeal on the basis that the respondent had not only caused the appellant to suffer a loss by her negligent misstatement, but had also acted unlawfully, as she had made inroads into several of the appellant’s rights against her by doing so.
False because the appeal was dismissed ,there was no legal duty not to make a misstatement
In Lillicrap, Wassenaar and Partners v Pilkington Brothers the majority judgment (by Grosskopf AJA) held that our law, like Roman law and Roman-Dutch law, recognises the possibility of a concurrence of actions (concursus actionum) and thus that the same facts may give rise to a claim for damages ex delicto as well as one ex contractu.
True
In Indac Electronics v Volkskas Bank the Appellate Division repeatedly characterised the legal duty, the breach of which renders negligent conduct wrongful of unlawful, as a duty not to act negligently (or to exercise care).
true
In Standard Chartered Bank of Canada v Nedperm Bank the Appellate Division held that the unlawfulness or wrongfulness of a fraudulent misstatement depended on a variety of factors, such as whether the person making the misstatement had known or ought to have known it to be false and had known or ought to have known that the person to whom it was made would rely upon it to his or her detriment.
False. this was not a fraudulent misstatement it was a negligent misstatement
In Telematrix v Advertising Standards Authority SA the Supreme Court of Appeal took the view that, where an incorrect adjudicative decision gives rise to pure economic loss, it should result in liability whether it was made in bad faith or was made in good faith but negligently. To hold otherwise, said the Court, would go against public policy, which required adjudicators and adjudicative bodies to be held accountable for any failures on their part to meet the highest possible standards of decision-making.
False only in bad faith
In Trustees, Two Oceans Aquarium Trust v Kantey & Templer the Supreme Court of Appeal expressed the view that, in the case of omissions or conduct causing pure economic loss, the determination of wrongfulness is concerned with the question whether policy considerations require that such conduct, if negligent, should result in liability.
True
