Negligence: Breach of Duty and Causation-in-Fact

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Breach of Duty, standard of care tests, and Causation-in-Fact principles in the law of negligence.

Breach of Duty

A failure by the defendant to meet the expected standard of care, which must be established for negligence liability even where a duty of care is owed.

Question of Law (Breach of Duty)

The legal question asking: 'How the Reasonable man would have acted in the circumstances of the Defendant?'

Question of Fact (Breach of Duty)

The factual inquiry asking: 'Did the Defendant meet the required standard?'

The Reasonable Man

A judicial construct used as an objective standard to determine how a prudent individual would act under the same circumstances.

Negligence (Alderson B's Definition)

From Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks [1856]: 'the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do.'

Objective Standard of Care

The principle from Glasgow Corporation v Muir [1943] AC 448 establishing that the standard of the reasonable man is an objective assessment rather than a subjective one.

Learner Driver Standard of Care

The rule from Nettleship v Weston [1971] 2 QB 691 establishing that a learner driver is held to the same standard as a reasonable, qualified, and competent driver.

Driver Incapacity Principle

The rule from Roberts v Ramsbottom [1980] 1 All ER 7 holding that a driver can be liable in negligence if they continue driving despite being aware of an incapacity or feeling unwell.

Bolam Test

The standard of care for defendants possessing special skills, requiring the ordinary skill of an ordinary competent person exercising that particular skill rather than the highest expert skill (Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 2 All ER 118).

Likelihood of Harm

A factor in assessing breach of duty holding that the more likely harm is to occur, the more care must be taken (Bolton v Stone [1951] HL).

Gravity of Harm

A factor in assessing breach of duty holding that the more serious any potential injury is likely to be, the more the defendant must do to try to prevent it (Paris v Stepney Borough Council [1951] 1 All ER 42, HL).

Utility of the Defendant's Conduct

A factor in assessing breach of duty where the social value or benefit of the defendant's actions is weighed against the magnitude of the risk (Watt v Hertfordshire County Council [1954] 2 All ER 368, CA).

Burden of Taking Precautions

A factor in assessing breach of duty that weighs the cost and difficulty involved in avoiding an identified risk (Latimer v AEC Ltd. [1952] 1 All ER 1302).

Causation-in-Fact

The requirement in negligence to prove that the defendant's careless conduct was the factual cause of the harm suffered by the claimant, distinct from causation in law and remoteness of damage.

The 'But For' Test

The initial test for factual causation asking whether, but for the defendant's conduct, the claimant would have suffered the injuries or harm complained of.

Hospital Management Committee [1969] 1 QB 428

A case where a doctor breached their duty of care by failing to see a patient who presented with stomach pains, but was not liable because the doctor's negligence was not the factual cause of the patient's death under the 'but for' test.

Multiple Potential Causes

A factual situation where several possible causes exist for an injury, making the 'but for' test difficult to establish (Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority [1988] HL).

Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority [1988] HL

A House of Lords decision where factual causation failed because a premature infant's condition could have been produced by several innocent medical conditions in addition to the doctor's negligence.

Material Contribution to Harm

A causation exception established in Bonnington Castings v Wardlow [1956] AC 613 allowing a claimant to satisfy causation by proving that the defendant's negligent acts materially contributed to the injury.

Williams v The Bermuda Hospitals Board (Bermuda) [2016] UKPC 4

A Privy Council case ruling that where both 'innocent' and 'guilty' causes existed in a delayed diagnosis, the hospital's negligent delay materially contributed to the claimant's harm.

Successive Causes

Scenarios where a claimant is injured by a defendant's negligence, but an unrelated supervening event occurs prior to trial that causes the same loss (Baker v Willoughby [1970] AC 467; Jobling v Associated Dairies Ltd [1982] AC 794 (HL)).

Informed Consent

A doctrine in medical negligence concerning a practitioner's duty to disclose treatment risks to a patient, evaluated in Chester v Afshar [2004] UKHL 41 and Khan v Meadows [2021] UKSC 21.