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TORT REVISION- ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
An in-depth yet succinct note of everything you need for tort law. Vital for crunch hour.
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LECTURE OUTLINE 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE LAW OF TORT AND DUTY OF CARE ITorts are civil wrongs for which the law will provide a remedy.
1.5 NEGLIGENCE: DUTY OF CARE I
Must be established that the defendant owed to the C a duty to take care, so that it amounts to
a breach of duty which results in damage to the claimant that is not ‘too remote’.
The existence of a duty of care for personal injury and property damage was originally
decided by Lord Atkin's neighbour test from Donoghue v Stevenson: Mrs Donoghue went to
a cafe with a friend. The friend brought her a bottle of ginger beer and an ice cream. The
ginger beer came in an opaque bottle so that the contents could not be seen. Mrs Donoghue
poured half the contents of the bottle over her ice cream and also drank some from the bottle.
After eating part of the ice cream, she then poured the remaining contents of the bottle over
the ice cream and a decomposed snail emerged from the bottle. Mrs Donoghue suffered
personal injury as a result. She commenced a claim against the manufacturer of the ginger
beer.
Held:
Her claim was successful. This case established the modern law of negligence and established
the neighbour test.
Lord atkin’s neighbour test: You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which
you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour.
The neighbour test for establishing a duty of care can be broken down in to two requirements:
1. Reasonable foresight of harm - Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co - Some young offenders
were doing some supervised work on Brown Sea Island under the Borstal regime. One night
the Borstal officers retired for the evening leaving the boys unsupervised. Seven of them
escaped and stole a boat which collided with a Yacht owned by the claimant. Held - The
Home Office owed a duty of care for their omission as they were in a position of control over
the 3rd party who caused the damage and it was foreseeable that harm would result from their
inaction.
2. A relationship of proximity - Bourhill v Young - The claimant was a pregnant fishwife.
She got off a tram and as she reached to get her basket off the tram, the defendant drove his
motorcycle past the tram at excessive speed and collided with a car 50 feet away from where
the claimant was standing. The defendant was killed by the impact. The claimant heard the
collusion but did not see it. A short time later, the claimant walked past where the incident
occurred. The body had been removed but there was a lot of blood on the road. The claimant
went into shock and her baby was still born. She brought a negligence claim against the
defendant's estate.
Held:
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