Negligence essay plan:

• One of the advantages of Duty of care is that the stage of duty of care allows for many cases to be filtered out so that only the right cases proceed forward into the court process. This means that the court process doesn’t get too backlogged with annoying cases that will be chucked out due to not meeting the criteria’s. This is done by using Robinson V Chief constable Of West Yorkshire (2018).
• However one of the disadvantages of this stage of the test is that the neighbourhood principle, set out within Donoghue V Stevenson (1932), was very wide open which meant that anyone could claim for compensation if they thought that they had a duty of care. This lead to an increase in the claims that went through the court systems and increased the risk of a compensation culture. 
• Another area of negligence is Breach of duty. One of the advantages of Breach of duty is that there is a greater emphasis on health and safety which has led to more working sites now having more barriers to protect all passers-by from injury. Courts will also consider whether all appropriate precautions have been taken by a defendant and balance this against the cost and effort of taking those precautions.
• For example in Latimer V AEC (1951), it was considered reasonable for the factory to spread sawdust over a previously flooded factory floor in order that production could restart. Also it is fair that there should be no liability if a risk has been taken when the benefit to society is greater than the greater harm. This was shown in both in Watt V Herefordshire County Council (1954) and Day V High Performance sports (2003), this was because it was essential for the defendants to act quickly or otherwise the victim would have suffered much more serious harm.
• However one of the disadvantages of Breach of Duty is that the objective test of what is reasonable can operate unfairly against a defendant. This is due to the law not taking into account the defendant’s actual experience, just the standard of skill expected at that level. This means that it does not meet the main aim of tort which is to balance the competing interests between the victim and the defendant due to the courts being harsher on the defendant compared to the claimant. 
• However one of the disadvantages of causation and remoteness is that the rules on remoteness of damage can be unfair to a claimant as they can operate in a way to limit the defendants liability. The approach taken by the courts in determining what “type” of damage may be reasonable may not be fair. This was shown in Wagon Mound, where the claimant was not able to receive compensation for the damage caused by a fire from an oil spillage.
• This means that the test for causation and remoteness does not allow the claimant to receive compensation for the damage caused by the defendant, which is the main aim of tort. 
• The third area of negligence is Causation and remoteness. An advantage of Causation and remoteness is that the “but for” test allows for the principles to be applied to every claimant in the same way. This means that it prevents any repugnant outcomes. Also the courts have created tests to states whether the defendant made a “material contribution” to provide justice in specific instances.
• This was shown in Fairchild V Glenhaven (2002) and Barker v Corus (2006). After the Barker V Corus case Parliament introduced a Compensation act 2006 which allowed for claimants to receive compensation for mesothelioma cases. 
• The final area of negligence that I will be discussing is the reforms suggested by the Pearson Committee 1975, who suggested reforms based on schemes running in other countries. This is because in Canada they run state schemes to cover accidents at work. One of the benefits of this is that it could lead to claims not being expensive because they are covered by the government.
• However one of the drawbacks of this system is that it wouldn’t fix the problems at accidents at work and it would probably increase claims because of them being covered by the government. Thus leading to a risk of a compensation culture.