This is the first task of Unit 22 - Aspects of Civil Liability for Business, consisting of P1, P2 and M1. To achieve P1, you need to explain the requirements for liability in the law of negligence, using examples from real life cases. For P2, you need to describe how damages are calculated in the ...
P1 – Explain the requirements for liability in the law of negligence.
In this task, I am going to explain the purpose of negligence in law and what the requirements are
for liability in the law of negligence. First of all, negligence is where someone takes actions or does
someone without having the intention to cause any consequences or damage but they do not seem
to care about it. There are five different elements of negligence in law; Duty of Care, Caparo three
part test, Breach, Causation and Remoteness of Damage.
Duty of Care is where someone performs or gets involved in a certain act in which it could cause
harm to someone else that they need to take responsibility of. For example, in the case Donoghue v
Stevenson [1932], ‘Mrs Donoghue suffered personal injury of gastroenteritis and the nervous-shock’
after drinking the majority of the bottle of ginger beer that her friend bought her which had a
decomposed snail in the bottle in which she wasn’t aware of, therefore the manufacturer
Stevenson’s is responsible for the harm caused to Mrs Donoghue, owing her a duty of care.
The Caparo three part test is an element of negligence in which it consists of three different stages.
The first stage is where harm is assessed to see whether it is a reasonably foreseeable result of the
defendant’s conduct of not. The second stage is where the proximity is assessed to see what the
relationship was between the defendant and the claimant. The final stage is where the judgement is
as to whether the decision or act was fair and reasonable to impose liability or not. An example of
the Caparo three part test is the Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman [1990], where Caparo ended up
with a loss due to the fact that his profits of his firm was misrepresented, therefore he had a
negligent misstatement so it wasn’t foreseeable. Another example of the Caparo three part test is
the Bourhill v Young [1943] case, where it only got to two stages instead of three because it wasn’t
foreseeable that Bourhill was going to give birth to her child which is the first stage and she also
didn’t have a proximity relationship with the motorcyclist which is the second stage.
A Breach or Breach of Duty is where a party owing it starts to go below the standard behaviour
required within the duty that is in question depending on the situation. For instance, there is the
standard of the Reasonable Man which is the person who is in question or involved in a certain
situation. An example of Breach of Duty is the Hayley v London Electricity Board [1965] case, where
the reasonable man in question was Hayley in which he was blind and the accident of him tripping
over the hammer and making him also deaf meant that the electricity board owes Hayley a breach of
duty.
Causation is where the claimant has to provide evidence that the breach of duty caused an impact of
the contribution to the damage that was suffered. An example of causation is the Barnett v
Kensington and Chelsea Hospital [1969] case, in which there was evidence that the man died from
poisoning in hospital that was in his tea because the hospital sent the patients home who were
affected from poisoning instead of treating them for poisoning.
Remoteness of damage is the extent of the liability of the defendant that is determined by the
boundaries that are set by the judges. An example of Remoteness of damage is the Paris v Stepney
[1951] case, where the claimant ended up being completely blind due to an injury at his workplace
in which the employer didn’t provide safety equipment, therefore it was a lethal damage as it
affected the claimant’s eyesight by being completely blind.
P2 – Describe how damages are calculated in the law of tort.
In this task, I am going to describe the damages that are calculated within the law of tort. Within the
law of tort, there are losses and defences that are included in court.
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