precedent Flashcards
Tort
A civil wrong that entitles the injured party to the remedy of compensation.
Involves a breach of a Duty imposed by the law.
Negligence
One aspect of tort law.
Defined as the Breach of a duty to take care, owed in law by the defendant to the claimant causing the claimant damage.
To succeed the claimant must prove
The defendant owed them a duty of care.
The defendant was in breach of that duty of care.
The claimant suffered damage caused by the breach of duty that was not too remote.
1932 Donoghue v Stevenson
Ordered one ice cream and one bottle of ginger beer.
Poured half the bottle of beer onto the ice cream.
Poured remaining half into a glass – decomposed snail was in the glass.
Miss Donoghue hadn’t brought the beer so wasn’t in a contract with café owner. She took a claim against the manufacturer of the beer.
Lord Atkin declared ‘the rule that you are to love your neighbour becomes in law you must not injure your neighbour’
Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co [1970]
House of Lords imposed a duty of care on the home office due to the “Special relationship” between the home office and the Borstal boys.
Borstal boys wanted to get off the prison Island and Stole a Yacht damaging it.
The Yacht company took a claim against the home office because they were supposed to be watching the youth offenders.
Anns v Merton LBC [1978]
Local Authority failed to notice the foundations of new block were poor.
Plaintiffs were lesses who sued for the cost of rebuilding.
Plaintiffs couldn’t sue in contract because they were out of time and some plaintiffs were not the original purchasers.
Caparo Industries v Dickman [1990]
House of Lords said that there was 3 questions to be asked in deciding if a duty of care was owed by the defendant to the claimant.
- was damage reasonably foreseeable.
- was the relationship sufficiently proximate.
- is it fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care.
differing outcomes of the 3 stage tests due too
Type of damage sustained.
Whether the damage resulted from an act or an omission.
Whether it was caused by the defendant of a third party.
Whether the defendants fall within a range of groups who have become subject to the special rule.
Contributory negligence
Where any person suffers damage as the result partly of their own fault or the fault of any other persons a claim in respect of that damage shall not be defeated by reasons of the fault of the person suffering the damage by the damages recoverable in respect therefore shall be reduced to such extent as the court thinks just.
Pure economic Loss
Pure economic Loss may be defined as loss that is purely financial in the sense that it does not result from damages to the claimants property or injury to the claimant’s person.
Consequential Economic loss
Financial loss that is consequent upon damage to property owed by the claimant.
Spartan Steel and Alloys LTD v Martin and Co [1973]
The defendants negligently cut through the cable that supplied power to the plaintiff’s factory.
Plaintiff’s brought an action for 3 types of loss:
- Damage to the melt that was in the furnace during the power cut.
- Loss of profit on melt thrown away.
- Loss of profit on four further melts not carried out due to closure.
Only the 2 first claims were recoverable.
Junior Books v Veitchi [1983]
Plaintiffs entered a contract with a firm to build a factory.
The defendants had been subcontracted by the contractors to lay the floor.
Floor was defective and had to be relaid.
Plaintiffs sued for relaying costs and loss of profit.
Held that the subcontractors owed the plaintiffs a duty of care in tort.
Psychiatric harm
Mental pain or anxiety the law cannot value, and does not pretend to redress, when the unlawful act complained of causes that alone.
Concept of nervous shock
Emphasised that the key element was that a claim for psychiatric harm required the “sudden shock” of witnessing or participating in a specific single event.
