Duty of Care Case Study.

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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 have been detrimental to the effectiveness and speed at which the car halted. Since Dan “suddenly appeared” from “behind a parked car” it was not reasonably foreseeable for Charles to have conducted in any other manner than he already had.

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The reasonable forseeabilty test was brought about through Blythe v Birmingham waterworks. Lord Atkin tells us that liability arises when the defendant can reasonably foresee that his acts would be likely to injure his neighbour.

"You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour." This is an objective test which is a matter of law. The damage is also too remote to claim for as the type of harm and not the extent was not reasonably foreseeable by Charles who was unaware of Dan’s medical condition that made him ...

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