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Tort of Negligence

Paul Devlin

Colum McGrail

Duty of Care

Donoghue v Stevenson

Duty of Care

This case was eventually settled out of court, with Donoghue recieving £200 of the £500 she had claimed for. This case established the NEIGHBOUR PRINCIPLE.

When trying to establishthe existence of a duty of care 3 factors ought to be taken into account:

-reasonable foresight of the loss.

- proximity: relationship between claimant and defendant.

- whether the imposition of a duty is reasonable and just.

Quiz

Ther Neighbour Principal

Is it possible for the police to be sued for negligence in revealing the name of an informer to the person informed on?

Is there a defence in the tort of negligence of being under age?

Under the Consumers Protection Act, 1987, there is need to prove negligence by the supplier?

The neighbour principle provided the foundation and conceptual cornerstone for the development of the law of negligence in the twentieth century.

"You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law, is my neighbour? The answer seems to be persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question."

Reasonable Foreseeable

The defendant owed the claimant a duty of care to protect him from the harm suffered.

The defendant was in breach of that duty.

It was found that it was the defendant's breach of that duty which caused the injury

A defendant will only owe a duty of care to plaintiffs who are reasonably foreseeable. Anyone likely to be affected by the actions or omissions of the defendant will be regarded as a reasonably foreseeable plaintiff.

Caparo v Dickman

Donoghue v Stevenson

A company called Fidelity plc. was the target of a takeover by Caparo Industries plc. Fidelity was doing badly and in March 1984 issued a profit warning which halved its share price. At this point Caparo had begun buying shares in large numbers. Once Caparo reached a shareholding of 29.9% it made a general offer for the remaining shares.

Stevenson responded to the condenscendences by denying that any of his bottles of ginger beer had contained snails. Stevenson argued that the claim had no legal basis, that the facts could not be substantiated, that he had not caused Donoghue any injury and that the claimed amount was excessive.

Definition

Caparo v Dickman

a failure to exercise that care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harmcaused by carelessness, not intentional harm.

Donoghue v Stevenson

Once Caparo had controlit soon found that Fidelity's accounts were in an even worse state than had been revealed by the directors or the auditors. Caparo sued Dickman for negligence in preparing the accounts and sought to recover its losses.

The full allegations made by Donoghue were presented in five condescendences, which claimed that Stevenson had a duty of care to Donoghue to ensure that snails did not get into his bottles of ginger beer, but he had breached this duty by failing to provide a system to clean bottles effectively. This ineffective system was alleged to result from the bottles being left in places where snails had access to

Caparo v Dickham

Donoghue v Stevenson

Caparo v Dickham

Caparo v Dickman

In conculsion it was agreed that no duty of care was owed by the defendants to potential investors in the company who might acquire shares in the company on the basis of the audited accounts.

The plaintiff was unsuccessful on a preliminary issue as to whether a duty of care existed. However was later successful in the Court of Appeal in establishing a duty of care might exist in the circumstances. Sir Thomas Bingham MR held that as a small shareholder, Caparo was entitled to rely on accounts; he believed Caparo's claim was good. This was overturned by the House of Lords.

It was argued that no duty of care was owed to the plantiff. An example was used of a shareholder and his friend both looking at an account report. If both went and invested, the friend who had no previous shareholding would certainly not have a sufficiently proximate relationship to the negligent auditorso it would not be sensible or fair to say the shareholder did either.

'Snail in the Bottle'

- Mrs Donoghue was drinking a bottle of ginger beer in a cafe with her fiend.

- Her friend bought the ginger beer.

- A dead snail was in the bottle.

- She fell ill, and she sued the ginger beer manufacturer (Mr Stevenson)

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