Tort Law: Negligence, Causation, and Remoteness

Comprehensive practice vocabulary flashcards covering the elements of negligence, factual and legal causation, the 'but for' test, multiple sufficient causes, material contribution and increase of risk, novus actus interveniens, remoteness of damage rules, and the egg shell skull doctrine as presented by Dr. Sarah Fulham-McQuillan.

Tort Law

The branch of civil law that redresses civil wrongs by establishing legal duties, protecting civil interests, and providing remedies such as damages to victims of wrongful acts or omissions.

Duty of Care

The foundational element of negligence requiring the defendant to conform to a legal obligation to avoid causing foreseeable harm to persons who might be affected by their conduct.

Breach of Duty

The second element of negligence, occurring when a defendant's conduct fails to reach the required objective standard of behaviour expected of a reasonable person in the circumstances.

Four Elements of Negligence

The sequential legal requirements needed to establish liability: (1) Duty of care owed by the defendant, (2) Breach of that duty, (3) Suffered loss or damage by the plaintiff, and (4) Causation linking the breach to the damage.

Reasonable Person Standard

The objective legal standard used in negligence to assess whether a defendant breached their duty of care, based on what an ordinary, prudent person would do in similar circumstances.

Two-Step Enquiry of Causation

The judicial framework dividing causation into two distinct analytical stages: establishing factual cause first, followed by determining legal cause.

Factual Cause

The historical and factual connection establishing whether the defendant's negligent conduct was a necessary physical antecedent to the plaintiff's damage.

Legal Cause

The policy- and rule-based evaluation of whether a defendant should be held legally responsible for harm that was factually caused, accounting for intervening acts and remoteness.

The 'But For' Test

The primary test of factual causation in tort law, asking whether the plaintiff's damage would not have occurred 'but for' the defendant's negligent act or omission.

Kenny v O’Rourke [1972]

An Irish Supreme Court decision illustrating the application and boundaries of the 'but for' test in determining factual causation.

Barnett v Chelsea and Kensington Hospital Management Committee [1969]

A landmark case where hospital staff negligently turned away an arsenic-poisoned patient, but were not liable because the patient would have died regardless of medical intervention ('but for' test failed).

Duffy v Rooney and Dunnes Stores [1997]

An Irish High Court decision concerning factual causation and the application of the 'but for' test in product and occupier liability contexts.

Multiple Sufficient Causes

Situations in causation where two or more independent wrongful or natural events occur, each of which would have been sufficient on its own to produce the plaintiff's harm.

Baker v Willoughby [1970]

A case on multiple successive causes where a plaintiff suffered a leg injury in a car crash caused by the defendant and was later shot in the same leg during an armed robbery, requiring amputation; the original tortfeasor remained liable for ongoing disability.

Jobling v Associated Dairies Ltd [1982]

A case addressing successive causes where a workplace injury caused partial disability, but a subsequent naturally occurring, non-tortious spinal disease rendered the plaintiff completely incapacitated, cutting off future loss claims against the employer.

R(L) v Minister for Health and Children [2001]

An Irish Supreme Court case dealing with multiple causes involving a plaintiff who was infected with Hepatitis C and subsequently suffered independent injuries in a road traffic accident.

Material Contribution to Injury

An alternative causation standard applied when a defendant's negligence, combined with other causal factors, materially and more than negligibly contributed to the injury suffered.

Bonnington Castings Ltd v Wardlaw [1956]

A House of Lords decision establishing the material contribution test where a worker contracted pneumoconiosis from inhaling both non-negligent ('innocent') and negligent ('guilty') silica dust.

Material Increase of Risk

An exceptional causation principle applied when medical or scientific uncertainty prevents proving 'but for' causation, but the defendant's breach is shown to have materially heightened the risk of injury.

McGhee v National Coal Board [1973]

A case holding that an employer's failure to provide washing facilities materially increased the risk of the plaintiff developing dermatitis from brick dust, satisfying causation despite medical uncertainty.

Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd [2003]

A House of Lords ruling establishing that where a plaintiff contracted mesothelioma after exposure to asbestos across multiple successive employers, each employer who materially increased the risk could be held liable despite inability to pinpoint the specific causative fibre.

Quinn v Mid-Western Health Board [2005]

An Irish Supreme Court decision addressing whether the Fairchild principle of material increase of risk extends to medical negligence cases involving brain injury to a newborn during delivery.

Novus Actus Interveniens

An independent, intervening event or act by a third party or the plaintiff that breaks the chain of legal causation between the defendant's original negligence and the eventual damage.

Breslin v Corcoran [2003]

An Irish Supreme Court case where a car owner left his car unlocked with the key in the ignition; theft was foreseeable, but the joyrider's negligent driving and subsequent collision were held to be an unforeseeable novus actus interveniens.

Fennelly J’s Novus Actus Principle

The rule from Breslin v Corcoran stating that a careless actor is not liable for damage directly caused by an independent third party unless that intervening damage was the very kind of thing they were bound to expect and guard against.

McMahon & Binchy Factors for Intervening Acts

Two judicial criteria for novus actus interveniens: (1) whether and to what extent the intervening act was foreseeable by the original actor, and (2) the mental attitude of the subsequent intervenor (careless, grossly negligent, reckless, or intentional).

Conole v Redbank Oyster Co [1976]

An Irish Supreme Court case where a boat owner knowingly put to sea in an unseaworthy boat overloaded with 50 children; the captain's reckless decision was ruled the sole causative negligence, exonerating the boat manufacturer.

Henchy J's Dictum in Conole v Redbank Oyster Co

Judicial statement that putting to sea with passengers despite a clear warning that the boat was unfit constituted the sole, direct, and proximate cause of the accident, making the defendants the sole initiators of causative negligence.

Remoteness of Damage

The legal doctrine that determines how far liability extends for consequences factually caused by the defendant's negligence, preventing liability for overly distant or unforeseeable harm.

Direct Consequences Rule

The historic remoteness doctrine from Re Polemis, under which a defendant was held liable for all direct physical consequences traceable to their negligent act, regardless of whether the damage was foreseeable.

Re Polemis [1921]

A Court of Appeal case where stevedores negligently dropped a plank into a hold, generating a spark that ignited petrol vapour and destroyed the ship; the owners recovered full losses under the direct consequences rule.

Scrutton LJ's Statement in Re Polemis

The principle that reasonable foreseeability determines whether an act is negligent, but once negligence is established, the defendant is liable for all directly traceable damage, even if the exact kind of damage or its operation was not foreseen.

The Wagon Mound (No. 1) [1961]

A Privy Council decision that overruled the direct consequences rule of Re Polemis and established reasonable foreseeability of the kind of damage as the universal test for remoteness of damage.

Viscount Simonds' Ruling in The Wagon Mound (No. 1)

The judicial proposition displacing Re Polemis by holding that the essential factor in determining liability is whether the damage is of such a kind as the reasonable man should have foreseen.

Damage by Fouling vs Damage by Fire

The distinction in The Wagon Mound (No. 1) illustrating precise foreseeability: spilling furnace oil into the harbour made fouling damage foreseeable, but fire damage to the wharf from molten metal was unforeseeable, excluding liability.

Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963]

A House of Lords decision establishing that if the general kind of damage (burn injury) is foreseeable, the defendant remains liable even if the exact mechanism or sequence of events (paraffin lamp explosion) was unforeseeable.

Wieland v Cyril Lord Carpets Ltd [1969]

A decision on remoteness of damage confirming that foreseeability of the general nature of the harm will suffice to attach liability to the defendant.

The Egg Shell Skull Rule

The legal maxim that a tortfeasor 'takes his victim as he finds him,' making the defendant liable for all aggravated harm resulting from a plaintiff's pre-existing physical or psychological vulnerability if the initial type of injury was foreseeable.

Burke v John Paul & Co [1967]

An Irish Supreme Court case applying the egg-shell skull rule, where an employee developed a hernia due to an undetected congenital weakness while using a blunt cutting machine; the employer was held fully liable.

Loss of a Chance

A legal concept concerned with whether a defendant's negligence deprived the plaintiff of an opportunity or chance of a better outcome, categorized into economic loss (solicitor's negligence) and physical loss (medical negligence).