Liability in Negligence

What Liability in Negligence covers

The three elements a negligence claim must establish.

The 3 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Duty of care and causation in negligenceRecall questions on the elements of negligence, duty of care under Donoghue v Stevenson, Caparo v Dickman and Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, factual causation in Barnett, legal causation and remoteness in The Wagon Mound, and the thin skull rule.Open →
• Breach of dutyRecall questions on the reasonable person standard from Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks, the standards for professionals, learners and children, the risk factors of probability, seriousness, cost, social utility and knowledge, common practice, and res ipsa loquitur.Open →
• Economic loss, psychiatric injury and defective productsWhy pure economic loss is restricted (Spartan Steel, Caparo), negligent misstatement under Hedley Byrne, psychiatric injury for primary and secondary victims (Page v Smith, Alcock, McLoughlin, White) and liability for defective products.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Liability in Negligence further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Duty of care vs Breach of duty

  Duty of care: a legal obligation to take reasonable care not to injure a foreseeable claimant. Breach of duty: falling below the standard of the reasonable person in the circumstances.

• The Caparo test vs The neighbour principle

  The Caparo test: foreseeability, proximity and whether it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty. The neighbour principle: Lord Atkin's proposition that one must take care not to injure those closely affected.

• Factual causation vs Legal causation

  Factual causation: the but-for test asking whether the harm would have happened anyway. Legal causation: the requirement that the breach be an operative and substantial cause of the harm, with the chain of causation not broken by an intervening act.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Which case established the modern tort of negligence and the neighbour principle?

   Model answer

   Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), where a decomposed snail in a bottle of ginger beer led the House of Lords to hold a manufacturer owed a duty of care to the ultimate consumer.

2. 2

   What is the neighbour principle?

   Model answer

   Lord Atkin's principle that you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your 'neighbour' — persons so closely and directly affected that you ought to have them in contemplation.

3. 3

   Who counts as a 'neighbour' in law under Donoghue v Stevenson?

   Model answer

   Persons who are so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought reasonably to have them in mind as being affected when directing your conduct.

4. 4

   What are the three parts of the Caparo test for establishing a duty of care?

   Model answer

   (1) Was the harm reasonably foreseeable? (2) Was there a relationship of proximity between claimant and defendant? (3) Is it fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty?

5. 5

   Which case set out the three-stage duty of care test?

   Model answer

   Caparo Industries plc v Dickman (1990).

6. 6

   What must be shown for the 'proximity' element of the Caparo test?

   Model answer

   A sufficiently close and direct relationship between the claimant and defendant in terms of space, time or relationship.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Liability in Negligence revision questions

What does Liability in Negligence cover in OCR A-Level Law?

3 subtopics: duty of care and causation in negligence, breach of duty and economic loss, psychiatric injury and defective products. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Liability in Negligence organised?

By the OCR H418 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.