House of Lords, Duty of care,

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Isaac Samuel Davila        Tort Coursework        April 2002

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:

  1. Failed to respond promptly to Drake’s call for help;
  2. Misdirected a lifeboat to search inshore rather than offshore;
  3. 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:

  1. 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 consisted of a positive act, which directly caused injury, greater than that which would have occurred had they not intervened at all.

  1. On grounds of public policy, it would not be in the public interest to impose a duty of care on the coastguard in the circumstances of this case.

Court of Appeal HELD:

The decision of the lower court and the reasons for that decision were upheld.

On appeal to the House of Lords

Cases referred to in judgment:

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Legislation referred to in judgement:

My Lords, the most commonly adopted starting point, when the Court embarks upon the enquiry into whether a duty of care should be imposed, is the three stage Caparo test, derived from this House’s decision in Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman, comprising of a) the damage must be foreseeable, b) there must be a sufficiently proximate relationship between the parties, and c) it must be “fair, just and reasonable” for the court to impose a duty of care in the light of policy considerations with which the court is concerned.

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