Negligence

• Duty of care in negligence

  For someone to be liable of negligence, a duty of care is owed. This is established by the Caparo v Dickman test of foreseeability, proximity, and fair, just and reasonableness/public policy.
• Foreseeability

  • Tested on whether the reasonable person would have reasonably foreseen the claimant's injury as a result of their actions (Fardon v Harcourt)
• Proximity

  • Considered in whether a duty of care is owed, such as legal proximity between the defendant and claimant (Donoghue v Stevenson, Caparo v Dickman)
• Fair, just and reasonableness/public policy


  • Factors that can override proximity, such as in Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire where the police owed no duty of care to the victim's family due to insufficient proximity
• Breach of duty in negligence


  Established by the reasonable person test - whether the defendant failed to achieve the standard of conduct expected of a reasonable person
• Reasonable person test


  • If the defendant has a special skill, the reasonable person is someone of the same profession (Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee)
• Factors considered in breach of duty


  • Time of alleged breach (Roe v Minister of Health), likelihood of harm (Bolton v Stone), seriousness of foreseeable harm (Paris v Stepney Borough Council), usefulness/importance of defendant's job (Watt v Hertfordshire), cost of avoiding harm (Latimer v AEC)
• Causation/damage in negligence


  The breach of duty must be the cause of the damage suffered by the claimant, established through factual causation (but-for test) and legal causation (remoteness of damage)
• Remoteness of damage


  • The damage caused must not be too remote from the negligence/breach of the defendant (The Wagon Mound 1961)
• Eggshell skull principle


  • The defendant takes the claimant as they find them, and cannot avoid liability for greater damage due to the claimant's special sensitivity (Smith v Leech Brain & Co Ltd 1961)