tort law negligence coursework Allegra v Pure Analysis

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February 2006

LLB (hons) Full time; Year One.

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Tort Coursework; House of Lords Judgment.

Allegra v Pure Analysis

The case before me has previously been rejected due to doubts over the existence of the vital element of a duty of care owed by the defendant to the claimant.

Lord Macmillan in Bourhill v Young defines duty of care1 and Howarth2 criticizes this concept of requirement of duty. The duty of care is the vital element in the tort of negligence as a duty of care cannot be breached if it was not owed to the plaintiff in the first place. We must also consider the implementations of the Human Rights Act 1998, especially Article 63.

        Lord Atkin in the case of Donaghue v Stevenson4 offered us his “neighbour principle” to help us to establish a duty of care. He shows us that there is a basic requirement for foresight of harm to the claimant as well as proximity in order to be labeled a ‘neighbour.’ Lord Atkin also helps to explain this requirement of proximity when he says that neighbours are “persons so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in mind to the acts or omissions in question.” In making their report, we must consider whether or not the defendants in this case ought reasonably to have foreseen the harm caused to the claimant and whether there is sufficient proximity for the claimant to be able to be called a ‘neighbour’.

        Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co5 uses the ‘neigbour principle’ in Donaghue v Stevenson6 in order to establish a clear test for duty of care. The test asks two questions; was it foreseeable that the damage would occur unless care was taken to prevent it? And does a ‘special relationship’ exist?

        The claimant in this case has suffered personal injury from arsenical poisoning in the canal that the defendant had studied. Allegra claims that it was foreseeable that the report would be made available to the water authorities responsible for ensuring that the water was safe for humans how far can this be labeled a “special relationship”? We must remember that Allegra is a member of the public and decide whether the research team had a duty to the public to test the water for arsenic or whether this was the responsibility of the water authorities. In the case of Candler v Crane, Christmas and Co7 the Court of appeal had decided that no duty of care is owed to a third party and only exists within a contractual relationship.

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In the case of Hedley Byrne v Heller8 the courts allowed claims from the information provided by a defendant as long as a ‘special relationship’ exists. The obiter of this case also suggests that in some circumstances there a duty does exist to give careful advice to another person. Lord Reid9 explains that the ‘special relationship’ requires a voluntary assumption of responsibility by the party giving the advice as well as a reasonable reliance by the claimant on that advice and this was further explained by Lord Morris.10 Was Pure Analysis assuming a duty in creating the study and was ...

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