Tort law. As Abdul invited his neighbours children to his house, this established the relationship between the claimant and the defendant. As they were invited to swim in the swimming pool, and they were children, he has a greater responsibility to take c

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Tort law revision – unit 3!!!

2)B) Using the rules you set out in part a, dicuss whether Abdul has been negligent towards tom.

Firstly the duty of care needs to be established. Firstly there needs to be a connection between the DF and the claimant, as established in the neighbour test from donoghue and Stevenson. As Abdul invited his neighbours children to his house, this established the relationship between the claimant and the defendant. As they were invited to swim in the swimming pool, and they were children, he has a greater responsibility to take care of them as children have less spacial awareness of things that go on around them then adults, so they are more likely to have harm caused to them than an adult. So they have been connected as neighbours in law, as Abdul has invited the children to swim in his swimming pool, as he has invited them he has created a duty of responsibility over the children as they are in his care. Also, as it is his swimming pool he has a duty to make sure that it is fit to be used by other people, and that there are no risks of sever injuries from the use of it.

Following the three stage test from caparo v dickman, the first question that needs to be applied to this scenario is was the harm reasonably foreseeable? As Abdul had just finished cleaning around the pool, and the surrounding paving was quite slippery, some harm could be foreseeable, as even if Tom had walked he still may have slipped due to the pool only just been cleaned. As they were children that he had invited to swim in his pool, they are more likely to run in to the pool as the would be more excited to use it than an adult, so are at more risk of slipping on the slippery wet floor as they are more likely going to run in to the pool than walking. However, Abdul did warn them to be careful and that the floor was slippery, so he did make sure that they knew before hand.

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        The second question of is there sufficient proximity has already been answered as they are neighbours and he invited the children round to his house so he has assumed responsibility over them whilst they use the pool.

The third question that needs to be satisfied is it just fair and reasonable to impose a duty of care on the DF. As Abdul had just finished cleaning the pool, this means he has a greater responsibility to make sure that they are safe as there is a higher degree of risk injury due to the pool being slippery. ...

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