Negligence

Tags

law

Negligence (eg. Negligent driver crashing into your car).

For a tort of negligence:

A negligence case requires:

1. Duty of Care
2. A breach of the duty of care.
3. Claimant [see page 7, must] be damaged/harmed.
4. There is a [see page 8, causal] link between the damage and breach.
5. The damage must not be too see page 9, remote. See Thin Skull Rule.

Exceptions of a [see page 5, breach] exists for:

1. Illness
2. Children
3. Special skills. Claiming to be a professional that can be certified by some body.

Aside from these exceptions a court may take into consideration the [see page 6, circumstances] and the environment leading to the breach when defining what's reasonable. For example in life threatening situations disregarding care is ok.

See [see page 10, an overriding factor of public policy].

[see page 11, Defences]

• Volenti - the defendent voluntarily consents to the risk.
• Illegality - You were committing a crime... what do you expect me to do.
• Contributory negligence - The claimants own negligence contributed to their injury (I didn't check you were wearing a seatbelt... but you didn't wear a seatbelt).

[see page 12, Remedies] - Damages

There's something called a duty to mitigate. Meaning if the claimant was harmed and then refused an offer of help they then can't sue the defendant for not offering to help.

Damages are also reduced if the defendents negligence partially contributed to the damages.

Case Studies

Nettleship V Weston

1. Nettleship teaches Weston to drive.
2. Weston loses control and crashes and nettleship is injured.
3. Nettleship sues weston.
4. Weston claims her inexperience should be considered.
5. Court used the viewpoint of a (reasonable) proficient person and disagreed.

Mansfield v Weetabix

1. Glucose deficiency made persons mind not function properly (un-knowingly).
2. He crashed a Weetabix truck losing his
3. Court considered a reasonable person (who didn't know they were ill) and sided with mansfield.

Orchard v Lee

1. Dinner lady serves food at school.
2. Two boys playing catch and bumped into the dinner lady hurting her.
3. Court agreed boy had a duty of card but was not acting beyond the norms of catch for a reasonable 13 year old child and therefore didn't side with lady.

Paris v Stephney BC

1. Guy employed as garage hand and was partially blind (one eye didn't work).
2. Employer only gives eye protection to welders/etc.
3. Spark flies into employers eye and completely blinded him.
4. The degree of risk to the employee made the courts side with him.

Rothewell v Chemical and Insulating co ltd

1. Claimant suffers neural plaques in lungs from asbestos exposure.
2. These don't give rise to any symptoms or lead to anything else which constitute damage.
3. No violation of duty of care.

Platques are an injury... but not harm.

Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington HMC

1. Victim exposed to arsenic
2. C&K didn't give proper care in time.
3. Person died... but they would've died anyways.
4. No causal link between death and negligence
5. Courts didn't side with defendant.

McGee v National Coal Board

1. Defendent gets lung damages from machines.
2. Company is responsible for one machine, not the other.
3. The machine the companies responsible did contribute to injury.
4. Courts side with defendent due to a causal link.

Wagon man No. 1

1. Ship captain leaks oil into ocean.
2. Molten metal at company carelessly ignited the oil causing damage.
3. While damage from oil was foreseeable, damage from igniting the oil was not.
4. Therefore court sides with defendent, the damage from negligence wasn't foreseeable.