Negligence Cases (DOC) Flashcards

Question

***Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire* [1992] HL**

Answer 1

**Held**: Police who caused the Hillsborough disaster did not owe a DOC to those who had witnessed the crush in person or via TV - none of the cliamant were rpimary victims ( never in danger themsleves) and could not cliam as seondary victims as they failed to satisfy Lord Oliver's 'control mechanisms' **Alcock control mechanisms** 1. **Foreseeability** of psychiatric harm 2. A sufficient **relationship** ( close tie of love & affection) between C and V 3. **Proxmity** to the event in time and space 4. **Perception** of events with C's unaided senses 5. **Sudden Assault /Immediate** **Shock** on the nervous sytem

Answer 2

**Held:** A claimant, who suffered psychiatric harm resulting in premature birth, from the sight of horse and cart crashing into the pub wehere she was working, was able to claim damages for psychiatric injury. **Analysis** * Can be retroactively analysed as a case inovling a primary vitim of psychiatric Harm. * Reason the purely psychiatric harm was recoverable was because she had a real and immediate fear of injury to herself (Kennedy)

Answer 3

**Personal injury (psychiatric) Page** **Held:** Claimant was able to claim in respect of psychiatric harm suffered during a car crash - in order to owe a DOC to a primary victim in respect of psychiatric injury, D need only foresee personal injury of some kind (no need to foresee psychiatric injury). **Lord LLoyd** * *Whether D can reasonably foresee that his conduct will expose the plaintiff to the risk of personal injury, whether physical or psychiatric. If the answer is yes, then the DOC is established, even though physical injury does not in fact occur. There is no justifcation for regarding physical and psychiatric injury as different 'kinds of damage'*.

Answer 4

**Held**: Police officers who had witnessed the Hillsborough disater were unable to claim damages for psyhciatirc harm suffered from witnessing the event. **3:2** (Goff strongly dissenting ) **Reasoning** * Relationship of employment between the employer and employee did impose a DOC on the employer to protect employees from phsyical harm but this did not extend to psychiatric harm, when no physical harm had been suffered or threatened. * Rescuers were also not a special class of victim: unless they put themselves in danger they too were not primary victims and had to fulfill ***Alcock*** criteria to claim as secondary victims. * Police officers were not primary victims because they had not been in danger, or reasonably believed themselves to be. Did not fulfill the ***Alcock*** criteria to qualify as secondary victims. **Analysis** * Was this decision made on policy grounds? See Lord Hoffman: it would be unfair to allow Police to claim when relatives/bystanders could not (***Alcock***). * This in fact narrows the test for a DOC with regards vitims of psychiatric harm, and exmploys ex post facto reasoning in its assement * In ***Page*** it was held that if D can reasonably foresee that his conduct will expose C to the risk of personal injury then D owes a DOC in respect of any psychiatric harm C suffers * However in ***White*** the onus was put on the victim. It seems that it is not simply enough that D foresees the risk of personal injury to C, rather a (primary) victim must have actually been (or believed themselves to be) in danger of personal injury. Foresseability of risk is not enough, exposure to actual risk is required. * Can be reconciled by saying that D can only reasonably foresee risk of personal injury in circumstacnes where C is in fact exposed to that danger. Where C is not exposed to risk of injury ( e.g. a rescuer), then D cannot reasonably foresee that his conduct would endanger C. * Either way it shows the articicilaity of teh DOC concept. It is less about what D reasonably foresees, and more about what C did in fact experience. If C experienced danger of personal injury, then D ought to have foresee, if C did not experience danger, then D ought not to have foreseen it. **Lord Steyn** * To qualify as a primary victim *the plaintiff must at least satisfy the threhold requirment that he objectively exposed himself to danger or reasonably believed that he was doing so.*

Answer 5

**Held****:** Chadwick who rescued victims of a railway crash, was able to claim damages for psychiatric harm suffered from witnessing/experiencing the 'horror of the whole experience'. **Analysis** * in ***White*** Goff used this to argue that Rescuers were a sepcial class of victim who could cliam damage for psychiatric harm without needing to satisfy the ***Alcock*** criteria. However this was rejected by the majority: * ***Steyn:** hadwick was correctly decided. But it is not authority for the proposition that a person who never exposed himself to any personal danger and never thought that he was in personal danger can recover pure psychiatric injury as a rescuer.*

Answer 6

**Held**: C was able to claim for psychiatric damage suffered from witnessing the immediate aftermath of an accident in which her family were injured/killed. **Reasoning** * No need to witness the event -\> sufficient to witness the immediate aftermath (saw the surviving members of her family in the hospital 2-3 hours later). * Can be seen as a gloss on the Alcock Control mechanism 3: proximity.

Answer 7

**Held:** Two sisters who witnessed their father's fatal heart attack were ablet o recover even though the alleged neligent event leading to it ahd occured over a year before, when teh hospital had failed to diagnose the father's heart disease. **Analysis** * Recent appelate case which potentially expands the scope of what qualifies as proximate to the event. In this case the event was teh collapse rather than the failure to diagnose. Event thsu seems to be defined by reference to when causation takes effect, rather then when the breach of duty/negligent act is committed. * The Chamberlain J further considered where the “stopping point” may fall, so as to demarcate the end of an actionable event leading to liability for a secondary victim. Concluded that the end point for such liability would be when the damage to the primary victim becomes “evident".

Answer 8

**Held:** Barber was able to claim against his employee for psychiatric harm suffered as a result of being overworked. **Analysis** * Enmployer will be only be liable for psychiatric harm if the harm was foreseeable and the employer had failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it.

Answer 9

**Held:** D negligently cut through a power cable while performing road works, inadvertently cutting off power to C's factory and ruining a steel melt that was in production. C was able to claim for (i) physical damage to the melt in the furnace, (ii) loss of profit on the sale of that melt, **but not** (iii) hypothetical loss of profit on the sale of four melts that could have been processed during the time that the power was out. **Reasoning** * PEL is not recoverable because of policy - desire to avoid defendants being subject to claims of a potentially indeterminate size, * **Lord Denning:** *I think the question of recovering economic loss is one of policy. Whenever the courts draw a line to mark out the bounds of duty they do it as to limit the responsiblity of the defendant* * Also noted that C could have put in place a back-up generator or taken out insurance against the risk of a power outage. **Analysis** * Demonstrates the three main categories of tort losses * Physical Damage (i) * Consequential Economic Loss (ii) * Pure Economic Loss (iii)

Answer 10

**Held:** An employer owed his former employee a DOC to take reasonable care in producing an accurate and fair report when writing references to prospective employers. **Reasoning** * Natural extension of the ***Hedley Byrne*** Principle. * **Lord Woolf** approached the question if there was a duty of care by directly applying the Caparo test: foreseeability, proximity, fair, just and reasonable. However, Caparo also required that a court consider whether the case was sufficiently analogous to existing categories where a duty is owed. Since Hedley Byrne concerned an allegedly negligent positive reference, Lord Woolf reasoned that it was not too large a step to recognize a duty in respect of a negligent negative reference. * One significant difference NOT noted by Lord Woolf is that the person who suffers loss as a result of the negative reference is not the person to whom the statement was directed, nor the person who relied upon it. * Using negligence in this way enables the courts to bypass the strictures of defamation which require malice in order to establish a claim (doctrine of qualified priviledge) * **PEL Exception 2: Negligent References**

Answer 11

**Held:** A solicitor's AOR giving rise to a DOC in respect of his client, also extended to the intended beneficiary of the will, therefore the beneficiary was able to claim damages for losses suffered from the solicitor negligently failing to update the testator's will. **Analysis** * Intended beneficiary can recover providing it was reasonably foreseeable by the solicitor that a consequence of his negligence might result in the loss of the intended legacy without either the testator or his estate having a remedy against him * **PEL Exception 4: Breach of fiduciary duty**

Answer 12

**Held:** The council did not owe a DOC in negligence for the remedial cost incurred in remedying a building because the inherent damage is purely economic. Therefore the buyer of a defective house was unable to sue the council who negligently authorised the building of that house. **Analysis** * **Overruled the *Anns* test** * **Lord Bridge** also held in *obiter* that if a defect in a chattel causes economic loss (rather than physical problems as in Donoghue) a manufacturer cannot be held liable, even if the thing is defective to the point of being worthless. Liability in such a case is for contract to determine. No DOC because no proximity/special relationship.

Answer 13

**Held:** The loss suffered by a building owner from an ordinary building defect was the cost of rectifying the defect and was ordinarily irrecoverable in tort as pure economic loss. Lord Bridge's *dictum* in ***Murphy v Brentwood DC*** which qualified that principle to allow some recovery where buildings were close to the boundary of the owner's land, did not represent the law. **Analysis** * Reaffrimed that PEL from defective goods is not recoverable

Answer 14

**Held:** A bank which negligently stated that the Claimant's customer had good credit, did not owe a DOC to the claimant becase they had disclaimed responsibility for any errors in the making of its statement. However had there not been a disclaimer, the bank would have owed a DOC in respect of PEL suffered by the claimant. **Analysis** * Court established a three-part test for when a DOC will airse in relation to a negligent misstatement: 1. A '**special relationship**' between C and D 2. An **AOR** by D 3. '**reasonable reliance**' placed by C on D **Lord Morris:** *If in a sphere in wbich a person is so placed that others could reasonably rely upon his judgment or his skill or upon his ability to make careful inquiry, a person takes it upon himslef to give information or advice to another person who, as he knows or should know, will place reliance upon it, then a DOC will arise.* **Lord Reid**: *where it is plain that the party seeking information or advice was trusting teh other to exercsie such a degreee of care as the circumstaces requires, where it was reasonable for him to do that, and where the other gave information or advice when he knew or ought to have known that the inquirerer was relying on him*. **Special relationship** * In ***Caparo*** it was ehld that in order for a **special relationship to exist** D must have: (i) _communicated_ the statement to the claimant (ii) made the statement in relation to a particular _transaction_ _(_iii) _knew_ that C was likely to _rely_ upon the statement

Answer 15

**Held**: Barclays Bank were not liable to HM Customs for neligently failing to put a freexing order on a customer's account. **Reasoning** * No DOC was owed because 1. There was no _voluntary_ AOR so could not impose Hedley Byrne liablity 2. Applying the Caparo principles to this 'novel situation' there was inussificenty proximity and it was not FJR to impose liability on the bank. **Obiter** * **Lord Bingham**: The 'reliance test' is similar to the 'but for rest i.e. If A had not relied on B's statement A would have acted differently.

Answer 16

This is the idea that the smae law which governe the conduct of private indivduals, govern the conudct of public authorities. **Positive effect** * ***Robinson* [2018]** - since a private indvidual would be liable for teh harm caused in taht instance, the PA ough to be too * **Lord Reed:** At common law, public authorities are generally subject to the same liabilities in tort as private individuals and bodies […] Accordingly, if conduct would be tortious if committed by a private person or body, it is generally equally tortious [185] if committed by a public authority […] It follows that public authorities are generally under a duty of care to avoid causing actionable harm in situations **Negative Aspect** * ***Hill*** * ***Gorringe , Michael*** * ******Decisions were made on the footing that since a private party would not be subject to negligence liability for failing to act in the circumstances in question, a public authority should not be so liable either. * ‘*public authorities, like private individuals and bodies, are generally under no duty of care to prevent the occurrence of harm*

Answer 17

Ask whether, if the defendant were removed from the situation altogether, the claimant would still have suffered the damage.

Negligence Cases (DOC) Flashcards

(41 cards)