Tort: Negligence

What Tort: Negligence covers

Tort: Negligence is examined in Components 2 and 3, if tort is one of the three areas you sit. It covers duty of care and the neighbour principle, the Caparo test and the modern approach to duty, injury to people, damage to property and other kinds of loss, breach of duty and the reasonable man, the standard of care for professionals and for children, risk factors in deciding breach, proving breach and res ipsa loquitur, factual causation and the but for test and legal causation, intervening acts and remoteness of damage.

The 9 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Duty of care and the neighbour principleDonoghue v Stevenson and the neighbour principle, the rise and fall of the Anns test, and where the duty stops — Bourhill v Young, omissions, third parties and Kent v Griffiths.Open →
• The Caparo test and the modern approach to dutyThree parts of the Caparo test, reasonable foreseeability and proximity in the Caparo test.Open →
• Injury to people, damage to property and other kinds of lossPure economic loss, consequential economic loss and requirement that a product reach the consumer without intermediate examination.Open →
• Breach of duty and the reasonable manThe objective standard set in Vaughan v Menlove, why good intentions and personal wealth are irrelevant, what common practice proves, and the special cases of the learner driver and the amateur doing a job at home.Open →
• The standard of care for professionals and for childrenBolam and the responsible body of opinion, the Bolitho qualification, Montgomery on advising a patient, and the age-adjusted standard for a child defendant in Mullin v Richards and Orchard v Lee.Open →
• Risk factors in deciding breachThe four things a court weighs — likelihood, seriousness, the cost of precautions and social utility — through Bolton v Stone, Paris v Stepney, Latimer, Watt and Roe, and the rule against judging with hindsight.Open →
• Proving breach and res ipsa loquiturThe three conditions for letting the accident speak for itself, what the maxim actually does to the burden of proof, and the statutory shortcuts in section 11 of the Civil Evidence Act 1968.Open →
• Factual causation and the but for testBarnett and the but for question, the material contribution exceptions from McGhee to Fairchild, Wilsher on competing causes, and how the law handles successive injuries and loss of a chance.Open →
• Legal causation, intervening acts and remoteness of damageDifference between factual causation and legal causation, remoteness of damage and thin skull rule.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Tort: Negligence further

The same content, four other ways.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What three elements must a claimant prove in negligence?

   Model answer

   A claimant in negligence must prove that the defendant owed a duty of care. The claimant must then prove a breach of that duty. The claimant must finally prove that the breach caused damage that is not too remote.

2. 2

   Give the classic definition of negligence.

   Model answer

   Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks (1856) defined negligence as the omission to do something a reasonable man would do. Negligence also covers doing something a prudent and reasonable man would not do.

3. 3

   What were the facts and the decision in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932]?

   Model answer

   Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] concerned a decomposed snail in an opaque bottle of ginger beer. The House of Lords held that a manufacturer owes a duty of care to the ultimate consumer of the product.

4. 4

   State the neighbour principle.

   Model answer

   Lord Atkin's neighbour principle requires a person to take reasonable care to avoid acts likely to injure a neighbour. A neighbour is anyone so closely and directly affected by the act. The actor ought reasonably to have such a person in contemplation.

5. 5

   Why was the neighbour principle so important to the development of negligence?

   Model answer

   The neighbour principle supplied one general test in place of a list of separate duty situations. Negligence could then expand into new relationships as they arose.

6. 6

   What two-stage test did Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] lay down?

   Model answer

   Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] asked first whether there was enough proximity to raise a prima facie duty. The court then asked whether any policy consideration should reduce or negative that duty.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Tort: Negligence revision questions

What does Tort: Negligence cover in Eduqas A-Level Law?

9 subtopics: duty of care and the neighbour principle, the caparo test and the modern approach to duty, injury to people, damage to property and other kinds of loss, breach of duty and the reasonable man, the standard of care for professionals and for children, risk factors in deciding breach, proving breach and res ipsa loquitur, factual causation and the but for test and legal causation, intervening acts and remoteness of damage. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Tort: Negligence organised?

By the Eduqas A150QS specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.