Torts Case Laws

-Donoghue v Stevenson -Bolton v Stone -Home office v Dorset Yacht -Anns v Merton -Caparo v Dickman -Jacob Mathew v State of Punjab -Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences v Prasanth

Donoghue v. Stevenson

 Facts: On 26 August 1928, Mrs. Donoghue's friend ordered a ginger beer. It came in a dark, opaque bottle. Mrs. Donoghue drank the ginger beer and when her friend poured it into a tumbler, a snail floated out. Mrs. Donoghue suffered from shock and gastroenteritis

Issue: Whether the manufacturer owes a duty of care to the ultimate consumer, even though there was no direct contractual relationship

Rule: Neighbour Princple, which means that you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omission which you can reasonably forsee would be likey to injure your neighbour.

Bolton v. Stone

Facts: Stone (Plaintiff) was standing on a public road outside her house where she was hit and injured by a cricket ball. The cricket ground had a 17-foot fence on a 17-foot embankment. The ball had been hit outside the ground 6 times in the past and no one had ever been hit before.

Issue: Was there a duty of care to take precautions against a risk that was foreseeable but so unlikely to occur and did the cricket club breach its duty of care

Rule: There is no neglgience when the harm is so unlikely to happen and that no reasonable person would forsee it.

Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co.

Facts: Borstal inmates were taken to an island for weekend leave and training. Five boys escape at night and go to the Yacht Club and vandalise some yachts.

Issue: Whether Home office owed duty of care to the owners of the yachts.

Rule: Negligence exists when the defendant had control over the third party, exstension of the neighbour princple.

Anns v. Merton

Facts: London Borough did not carry out a full inspection of the foundation of the building, later structural defects appeared

Issue: Did the local authority owe a duty of care to the tenants of the flats

Rule: Set up the two stage test, Proximity and Policy.

CASE OVERTURNED

Caparo v. Dickman

Facts: Caparo bought shares in Fidelity by relying on the company's audited accounts. After the takeover, Caparo found out that Fidelity was in a much worse financial shape and Caparo made a financial loss.

Issue: Whether the auditors owed a duty of care to existing shareholders and/or potential investors

Rule: Caparo Test i) Forseeability
ii) Proximity iii) Fair, Just and Reasonable.

McLoughin v. Brian

Issue: Whether a duty of care was owed to a person who did not witness the immediate accident but who suffered psychiatric injury after seeing the "immediate aftermath" of the event. Also questioned claims of "nervous shock".

Rule: Established Criteria for Secondary Victims: Time and Space (Must be there Specifically) Causation ( The Event Must directly cause the harm) Relationship to the Victim

Page v. Smith

Issue: Should the primary victim be able to prove that psychiatric harm was forseeable or that just harm in general

Rule: Primary victims just need to prove that any harm was forseeable and that psychiatric harm would be applicable to the same.

Thin Skull Rule: Defendant can not escape liability just because the plaintiff if vulnerable to harm.

Alcock v Chief Contable

Issue: What are the criteria for establishing duty of care to secondary victims who suffer psychiatric injury after witnessing a traumatic event. Specifically, the court had to decide whether the claimants' relationships, physical proximity, and means of learning about the disaster were sufficient to justify a claim for "nervous shock".

Rule: No one was given as Mclougin Brian test there is no relationship to the victims as they just see it.

White v. Chief Constable

Issue: Are first responders considered as primary victims

Rule: First responders do not share any relationship with the victims they treat even thought they may be there physically.

Spartan Steel v. Martin

Issue: Can a claim for negligence include pure economic loss?

Rule: Pure Ecnonomic Loss is not recoverable but consequential economic loss that is damage to person or property is recoverable.

Murphy v Brentwood

Issue: Should the council be liable to pay damages because they did not inspect the propert correctly resulting in economic loss in sale.  

Rule: No (Overturns Anns) because this is just pure economic loss, the council owes duty of care to the public not individuals.

Hedley Byrne v Heller

Issue: Whether a party could be held liable for a negligent statement that caused a claimant to suffer pure economic loss. Could a duty of care be owed in such cases?

Facts: Negligent Mistatement and Asumption of Responsibility

1. Relationship = Contract
2. Assumes Responsbility
3. Other party relies on the statement
4. Knew the statement would be relied upon

Nettleship v. Weston

Issue: What is the standard of care expected from a learner driver

Ruke: A learner driver is expected to have same skill and care as that of a skilled driver, just because she is a learner does not mean that it lowers the standard.

Latimer v. Associated Equipment

Issue: Did the employer breach their duty of care by failing to take reasonable precautions to ensure the claimant's safety? Was it unreasonable for them to have kept the factory open given the dangerous conditions?

Rule: The standard of care in negligence is that of a reasonable person. This person is not expected to eliminate every foreseeable risk, but rather to take reasonable precautions against risks that are reasonably likely to happen

Overseas v Miller

Issue: Whether the risk, while small, was reasonably foreseeable, given the severity of the potential harm and the ease of preventing it.

Rule: A reasonable person does not have to guard against a remote possibility, but if a risk is foreseeable—even if the likelihood is low—and the potential harm is great, the duty to act increases, especially if the cost of prevention is minimal.

Bolam v. Friern Hospital

Issue: How to determine the standard of care for a professional, specifically a medical professional, when there are different, but respectable, bodies of professional opinion on the proper course of action.

Ruke: Bolam Test, It states that a professional is not negligent if their actions are in line with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of skilled professionals in that field, even if other professionals hold a different view. 

Bolitho v. City and Hackney health Authority

Issue: Whether a medical opinion is reasonable and logical.

Rule: Added onto the Bolam test, now even if the medical opinion is respected by a body of medical professional it also has to be logical and reasonable in the eyes of the court.

Montogomery v. Lanarkshire Health Board

Issue: Does a doctor have to inform material risks of a medical procedure

Rule: Doctors have to inform any material risk for medical procedures. Patient decision making is important.

Barnett v. Chelsea

Issue: Was the defendant’s negligence the cause of the death, or would it have inevitably happened anyway?

Facts: Barnett's husband died from arsenic poisoning. He felt sick after drinking tea at work and went to the hospital. He was not admitted and treated, but was told to go home. The doctor was at home and would not have been able to first see the man until approximately 11:00 AM. Barnett subsequently died at about 1:30 PM.

Rule: [ But For Test] Nield, based on the evidence, decides that even if the man had been admitted to the hospital upon his arrival he would likely have died. There was only one antidote for arsenic poisoning, and it was not readily available and could probably not have been administered in time to save his life. In cases of cause in fact the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that the defendant’s negligence caused the harm. That means that they must prove that without the negligence, the harm would not have occurred. The wife does not do this here, as it is probable that the man would have died even without the hospital's negligent refusal. [ But For Test]

Gregg v. Scott

Facts: Mr. Gregg consulted his doctor about a lump under his arm in 1994, but it was misdiagnosed as benign.This delay of nine months meant treatment began much later, allowing the cancer to spread and significantly reducing his chances of a cure. At the time of his initial consultation, Mr. Gregg had a 42% chance of a ten-year disease-free survival. By the time of the trial, this had decreased to 25%.

Issue: The core legal question was whether Mr. Gregg could claim damages for the loss of his chance of recovery, even though his initial prognosis was below a 50% chance of being cured. This was based on the precedent of Hotson v East Berkshire Area Health Authority, which suggested that a claimant must prove on the balance of probabilities that the negligence caused the unfavorable outcome, which was not possible here since his chance of being cured was never more than 50%. 

Rule: The House of Lords, in a majority decision, ruled that loss of a chance is a valid and actionable form of damage in medical negligence cases, even if the initial chance of a better outcome was below 50%. The court reasoned that the law should not ignore the significant reduction in prospects caused by the negligence just because the original prospects were not good enough to meet the 50% "all or nothing" test. This established that a negligent reduction in the probability of survival is a recoverable loss. 

McGhee v. National Coal Board

Facts: McGhee was an employee the National Coal Board, and generally worked emptying pipe kilns. However, one day he cleaned out brick kilns. This work caused him to get very sweaty, and powdered brick caked on to his skin. He then biked home without washing, because there were no cleaning facilities provided by the employer, and developed dermatitis. The exact way that this disease develops was not known at the time, but it was proven that the washing immediately after coming out of the kiln would have at least lessened the risk of it developing. The Coal Board was successful at the lower courts, which McGhee appealed.

Issue: When a defendant has been proved to have negligently contributed to the development of an injury, should they be liable if it can be shown that the plaintiff’s actions also led to the development, and the exact cause is unknown?

Rule: Where an injury is caused by two or more factors operating cumulatively, one or more of which is a breach of duty and one or more of which is not so, in such a way that it is impossible to ascertain the proportion in which the factors were effective in producing the injury or which factor was decisive, the law does not require the plaintiff to prove the impossible, but holds that he is entitled to damages for the injury if he proves on a balance of probabilities that the breach of duty contributed substantially to causing the injury. Material increase in risk was treated as equivalent to a material contribution to damage