Duty of care and economic loss - major cases.

DUTY OF CARE: ECONOMIC LOSS Basic Distinctions The law draws a distinction between: . pure economic loss; and, . economic loss which is directly consequential of reasonably foreseeable physical damage. The law also distinguishes between: . pure economic loss caused by negligent misstatement; and, . pure economic loss caused by a negligent act of the defendant. Pure Economic Loss There is no liability for pure economic loss in the absence of a contract between the claimant and the defendant. In Cattle v. Stockton Waterworks (1875) L.R. 10 QB 453 Blackburn J held that building contractors could not recover extra expenses incurred in finishing a tunnel after water, from the defendant’s works had flooded the tunnel and nearby land. Although the flooding was caused by the defendant’s negligence, there was no contract between the claimant and the defendant and no duty was therefore owed. Blackburn J said “…the question arises, can Cattle sue in his own name for the loss which he has in fact sustained, in consequence of the damage, which the defendants have done to the property of Knight, causing him, Cattle, to lose money under his contract? We think he cannot.” This was accepted and applied by Widgery J in Weller & Co. v. Foot and Mouth Disease Research Institute [1966] 1 QB 569. The defendants occupied premises where they carried out experimental work in

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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Duty of Care

Define and discuss the term 'Duty of Care'. In your discussion contextualize via examples, the application of such a concept in the field of Public Health, Health and Safety Management and Environmental Health. Within contemporary society, the concept of duty of care can be applied to a variety of industries, examples of these are; a doctor has a legal duty of care to his patient, a teacher to his pupil, as does a manufacturer to a consumer. Duty of care can be defined as a legal obligation, to exercise a level of care towards an individual, as is reasonably practicable in all the circumstances, to avoid injury to that individual or his property. In quintessence, duty of care ensures that quality, safety and high standards are paramount in delivery. With reference to the question, and for the purpose of this assignment, the writer will discuss the impact of 'Duty of Care' within the fields of Health and Safety Management, Public Health and Environmental Health. Fundamentally there are two branches of law, criminal and civil. Civil law usually deals with disputes where one person has suffered loss or harm and brings a legal action against another person, this can be referred to as a tort or a civil wrong. The word tort is derived from the Latin word tortus, which means twisted, however, in the technical legal wording, tort means a legal wrong (negligence) for which the law

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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Duty of Care.

DUTY OF CARE In order to establish negligence, the following had to be proved - . There was a duty owed to the claimant. 2. The duty was breached. 3. The claimant suffered damages as a result. The 'Neighbor' principle enunciated by Lord Atkins in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932) indicated to whom duty is owed and laid the principle for the modern tort of negligence. He said: 'The rule of law that you are to love your neighbor becomes in law, you must not injure your neighbor; and the lawyer's question, who is my neighbor? Receives a restricted reply. You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be like to injure your neighbor. The answers seems to be - persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought to reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question'..........'the proximity be not confined to mere physical proximity but be used as ....to extend to such close and direct relations that the act complained of directly affects a person whom the person alleged to be bound to take care would know would be directly affected by his careless act...' Grant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] UKPC Donoghue was ratified and furthered. It held that - * Essential question was not if the product could be examined

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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Duty of Care

Duty of care In tort law, a duty of care is legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foresee-ably harm others. The courts had decided that a duty should be owed, E.G road accidents, bailments or dangerous goods. The neighbor test has been made to expound such a general test, the neighbor principle means that you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee, would be likely to injure your neighbor. With the term 'neighbor' its meant people who are so closely and directly affected by your act, E.g drivers and road users, doctors and patients. The neighbour principle was established in the case of Donoghue v Stevenson, this case was about a snail in the ginger beer bottle, its where two friends went out for a drink, friend of Mrs Donoghue ordered for a drink, as Mrs Donoghue started to drink from the ginger beer bottle a contaminated snail fell out of it, therefore Mrs donoghue suffered several injuries, Mrs Donoghue had no direct or indirect claim against the manufacturer based on contractual obligations because she did not purchase the product but yet she sued the manufacturer. Now the requirements are it that must be satisfied before a duty of care is held to exist were laid down in Caparo Industries v Dickman. There are three elements, these are; (a)

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Law
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Is there a Duty of Care?

How do the Courts in England and Wales decide when a duty is owed by the defendant to the claimant? How should they decide these issues? To what extents should a decision be purely a matter of principle, as opposed to policy? The aim of the essay is to evaluate the current law on how a duty of care should be decided. The assignment will discuss what constitutes a duty of care within the tort of negligence. First, i will discuss why previous attempts, such as those demonstrated in Anns v Merton1 of establishing a duty failed, following a critical analysis of the current law in Caparo v Dickman2. The essay will subsequently discuss possible modifications in the law using academic writers, such as Christian Witting3. This will be followed reasons as to why the law should focus largely on policy rather than principle when establishing a duty of care, using iconic cases such as Weller & Co v Foot and Mouth Disease Research Institute4. A tort is a civil wrong which is committed against an individual rather than the state. The individual's interests can be protected through compensation for the infringement of a certain protected interest. Although there are many torts in which a duty of care is an element required in order to make a successful claim, such as Occupier's Liability5, for the purposes of the essay, the duty of care in the categories of negligence will be of primary

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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House of Lords, Duty of care,

House of Lords Duty of care, On 1st April 2000, Drake a yachtsman was sailing off the coast of Devon, when he got into severe difficulties due to severe weather. Drake sent a radio message to the Devon Coastguard service. The Secretary of State for Transport bears legal responsibility for this service. The coastguard service mounted a search and rescue operation. The coastguard acted negligently in their handling of this operation in that they: i) Failed to respond promptly to Drake's call for help; ii) Misdirected a lifeboat to search inshore rather than offshore; iii) Misdirected a Royal Navy helicopter and failed to mobilise another until four hours later. Drake was eventually rescued but his rescue was delayed for so long that he had to abandon his boat when it sank as it had taken in a large quantity of water. As a result of the time he spent in very cold water he suffered severe hypothermia, frostbite and shock. He later had to have his right leg amputated due to the effects of the frostbite. High Court HELD: i) Applying precedents relating to other emergency services, in particular the fire service, the coastguard services were under no enforceable private law duty of care to respond to an emergency call. If they did respond to an emergency call, they were not under any duty of care if their response was negligent, save where their negligence

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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Duty of Care Case Study.

2) Duty of care refers to the circumstances and relationships which the law recognises as giving rise to a legal duty to take care. A failure to take such care can result in the defendant being liable to pay damages to a party who is injured or suffers loss as a result of their breach of duty of care. Therefore it is necessary for the claimant to establish that the defendant owed them a duty of care. The existence of a duty of care depends on the type of loss and different legal tests apply to different losses. This lecture considers the position in relation to personal injury and property damage. See the other lectures for psychiatric injury, pure economic loss and defective items. As a road user, Charles has a duty of care to other road users, this includes other vehicles, and pedestrians etc. as can be illustrated in the case Donoghue v Stevenson 1932. For a negligence claim to be upheld there must be a breach in the duty of care, reasonable foreseeability, a degree of proximity between the defendant and the claimant and it must be fair, just and reasonable to impose such liability. This is illustrated in the case of Caparo Industries plc v Dickman 1990. It does not appear to be the case the Charles was driving recklessly or carelessly as he was driving “below the speed limit” when Dan appeared on the road. Charles also braked when he saw Dan but the heavy rain may

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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Corporate Governance - Shareholder's duty of care.

Paper, Corporate Governance UvA 2003 (Prof. dr Arnoud Boot & Prof. mr Jaap Glasz). Shareholder's Duty of Care Martijn Brinkhuis Lodewijk Derkman Tobias van der Hoeven Sjoerd Arlman Preface It was concluded in the NBER's 1998 working paper "Corporate Ownership Around the World" that large corporations are widely held only in economies with good shareholder protection. In the U.S., among the largest firms there is only modest concentration of ownership, while amongst the largest firms in Germany, Italy and Japan a more significant concentration of ownership was found1. In the latter countries especially banks own large blocks of shares. The Netherlands is somewhere in between, banks do not hold large blocks of shares as they do in Germany, Italy and Japan, however shares are not as widely held as in the U.S2. In countries with (semi-) widely held shares, a shareholder with a relatively small stake (e.g. 10%) will not be a controlling shareholder per se, but may be a controlling shareholder de facto. Large shareholders are in principal able to appoint board members representing their interests. Furthermore, large shareholders can also exercise power by blocking ratification of unfavourable decisions, or possibly by initiating decisions3. In other words, when they are large enough, i.e. when there are no other 'large' shareholders in the corporation, the largest

  • Word count: 2174
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Business Studies
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TORT ESSAY - PROBLEM QUESTION Economic loss and duty of care

TORT ESSAY - PROBLEM QUESTION Economic loss and duty of care Isabelle Richard As a result of a car accident caused by Rahul's negligence Sunita is transported to the Accident and Emergency Department of Milton Hospital where unfortunately it soon transpires that nothing can be done to save her. However her parents convince the doctors to keep her artificially biologically alive so as to carry her baby to term. Three months later her son Ashok is born with severe disabilities consequential upon the physical trauma suffered by his mother, and by repercussion, himself, during the accident. Sunita's husband seeks to sue the Milton Hospital Trust in negligence for the birth of his disabled son. The Milton Hospital Trust will be held vicariously liable for the torts committed by its employees during the course of their employment. The issue is therefore as to whether the doctors committed a tort in relation to Sunita's husband when they took the decision to keep her artificially alive for the sake of her unborn baby. The claimant will wish to establish that had they properly diagnosed the risks involved (i.e. the likelihood of the child to be severely disabled) and informed him accordingly he would have certainly exercised his right to terminate the pregnancy (and not keep Sunita on life-support) and assuming he did not have such right they were nonetheless negligent in acting

  • Word count: 2218
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Health and Social Care
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A Critical Examination of the Concept of Breach of Duty of Care

NEGLIGENCE1 Negligence is a legal concept in the common law legal systems usually used to achieve compensation for injuries (not accidents). Negligence is a type of tort or delict (also known as a civil wrong). However, the concept is sometimes used in criminal law as well. Negligence is generally defined as conduct that is culpable because it falls short of what a reasonable person would do to protect another individual from a foreseeable risk of harm. Through civil litigation, if an injured person proves that another person acted negligently to cause his injury, he can recover damages to compensate for his harm. Proving a case for negligence can potentially entitle the injured plaintiff to compensation for harm to their body, property, mental well-being, financial status, or intimate relationships. However, because negligence cases are very fact-specific, this general definition does not fully explain the concept of when the law will require one person to compensate another for losses caused by accidental injury. Further, the law of negligence at common law is only one aspect of the law of liability. Although resulting damages must be proved in order to recover compensation in a negligence action, the nature and extent of those damages are not the primary focus of negligence cases. Negligence is a tort which is the breach of a duty of care imposed by common or statute law,

  • Word count: 6356
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Law
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