2 Negligence 1: Duty of Care

Question 1

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932]

Answer 1

The decision:

Recognised the existence of a new ‘pocket’ of liability, that is a further, isolated, situation where a duty of care was owed outside a contractual relationship

Demonstrates that the ‘categories of negligence are never closed’. So the courts were prepared to recognise that new duty situations may arise, even if they are not necessarily closely analogous to previously recognised duties

Can be seen to establish a single, universal requirement to take reasonable care articulated in Lord Atkin’s ‘neighbourhood principle’

Question 2

Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978]

Answer 2

The local authority was liable for negligently failing to supervise the construction of a building.

A modern reformulation of Lord Atkin’s neighbourhood principle statement can be found in the judgement. The position was this: the defendant owed the claimant a duty to take reasonable care (provided that it was reasonably foreseeable that a failure to take reasonable care by the defendant would cause damage to the claimant) unless there was some policy reason why no duty should be held to be owed. This two stage was not readily accepted.
Overruled by Caparo v Dickman

Question 3

Bolton v Stone [1951]

Answer 3

Leading HoL case
The claimant was hit on the head outside her house with a cricket ball hit by a player from an adjacent cricket pitch.
It was clear that the defendant cricket club owed her a duty of care not to cause her physical injury. There was also no doubt that it was because of their activities – allowing cricket to be played at the ground – that the claimant suffered her injury. Had the defendant fallen below the appropriate standard of care?
No breach of duty. The likelihood of harm was low the defendant had taken all practical precautions in the circumstances. The cricket ground had been there for 90 years without injury and provided a useful service for the community

Question 4

Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990]

Answer 4

Leading case on the duty of care in tort in which the HoL detailed two approaches that courts should adopt when seeking to determine whether a duty of care is owed:

A three-stage ‘test’; or
Incrementally and by analogy

It was never the intention of HoL to provide concrete answers and so they stressed the impossibility of finding any single test which could be used to identify those situations in which a duty of care will be owed.

Question 5

What is the three-stage test in Caparo?

Answer 5

The Caparo three stage test requires the following to be established:

1. It was reasonably foreseeable that the defendant’s failure to take care could cause damage to the claimant; and
2. There was a relationship of proximity between the claimant and the defendant; and
3. It is fair, just and reasonable that the law should recognise a duty on the defendant to take reasonable care not to cause that damage to the claimant.

Question 6

Stovin v Wise [1996]

Answer 6

Similar view on ‘proximity’ to Caparo.

“Proximity is a convenient shorthand for a relationship between two parties which makes it fair and reasonable one should owe the other a duty of care.”