Administrative liability in English law is an area of law concerning the tortious liability of public bodies in English law. The existence of private law tort applying to public bodies is a result of Diceyan constitutional theory suggesting that it would be unfair if a separate system of liability existing for government and officials. Therefore, a public body which acts ultra vires is liable in tort is a cause of action can be established just like any individual would be. [1] An ultra vires action will not, per se, give rise to damages [2] Therefore, a claimant will have to fit into one of the recognised private law courses of action. These areas in which a public body can incur private liability in tort were described by Lord Browne Wilkinson in X v Bedfordshire County Council [1995] 3 All ER 353 (HL).
It is not enough that there is a careless performance of a statutory duty in the absence of any other common law right of action. [3]
For an action for breach of statutory duty to succeed:
It is possible for a public authority to be liable in the law of negligence. There can be no liability here for mere carelessness performance of a statutory duty or power in the absence of any other common law right of action.
A policy/operational distinction was once apparent in the court's reasoning. They suggested that they are more willing to attach liability to an act or omission of a public authority where the duty of care claimed emerges from the operation of the public authority rather than the policy pursued by it. So, for example, in the Dorset Yacht case the House of Lords decided that if the damage caused by a group of “borstal boys” had been the result of a policy decision to grant them greater freedom, it would not be actionable. If it were actionable, it would require the assessment of the policy, its impact on young offenders, the public, and public resources, a task which the court could not undertake. However, liability could be found where the public authority had been negligent in the exercise of the policy (i.e. negligent in the context of allowing greater freedom to young offenders). This reasoning was also adopted in the case of Anns v Merton . On the one hand, if the claimant had suffered damage as a result of a faulty inspection, that would be actionable operational negligence. On the other hand, it would be insufficient to show that structural flaws in the property would have been found if more inspections had taken place, if the lack of inspections was the result of a policy by the public authority. In the latter case the claim would not be actionable. However, the distinction now plays a relatively minor role in definition the duty of care owed by public authorities. The distinction now forms just one factor in deciding whether a decision is justiciable or non-justiciable, which is a decision to be taken by the court regardless of the views of the public authority itself. It is now more common to limit public authority liability on the basis of other factors. [4]
The test for liability in negligence laid down in Anns v Merton (concerning the liability of both public and private defendants) was disapproved in the subsequent case of Caparo Industries v Dickman , with the result that the extent of the duty of care of public authority defends would primarily result from asking whether it would be "fair, just and reasonable" to impose liability. In relation to public authority defendants, a wide range of factors would be considered including relevant statutes and a wide range of policy factors. [5] The role of justiciability is therefore much less significant, although it can still influence a decision on whether liability is fair, just and reasonable. [6]
The extent of liability in different areas has therefore been decided by a string of cases examining where it would be fair, just and reasonable to impose liability. In Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire , it was decided that the police owed no general duty of care to potential victims of crime. A determining factor was that the House of Lords believed that it was the discretion of a chief police officer to decide how available resources should be deployed and which leads should be acted upon and which possibilities ruled out. The House was also not prepared to risk the possibility of encouraging "defensive" policing whereby the police would shun any potential for liability even where to do so would further the case. [6] The court in Capital and Counties plc v Hampshire County Council decided that a fire brigade only owed a duty of care to the owners of the property to which it responded to avoid doing damage to the property which would not otherwise occur. In this instance, the relationship was insufficiently proximate, another, separate, requirement of Caparo test. This conclusion was extended also to the coastguard in an analogous case. [7]
Misfeasance in public office is considered to be a special kind of public law tort. It occurs when there is a malicious or deliberate exercise or non-exercise of a statutory or common law power by an official which causes loss to a plaintiff which has been foreseen. [8]
Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or property.
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by the state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit crimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a result of the actions of others. Some wrongful acts, such as assault and battery, can result in both a civil lawsuit and a criminal prosecution in countries where the civil and criminal legal systems are separate. Tort law may also be contrasted with contract law, which provides civil remedies after breach of a duty that arises from a contract. Obligations in both tort and criminal law are more fundamental and are imposed regardless of whether the parties have a contract.
Delict in Scots law is the area of law concerned with those civil wrongs which are actionable before the Scottish courts. The Scots use of the term 'delict' is consistent with the jurisdiction's connection with Civilian jurisprudence; Scots private law has a 'mixed' character, blending together elements borrowed from Civil law and Common law, as well as indigenous Scottish developments. The term tort law, or 'law of torts', is used in Anglo-American jurisdictions to describe the area of law in those systems. Unlike in a system of torts, the Scots law of delict operates on broad principles of liability for wrongdoing: 'there is no such thing as an exhaustive list of named delicts in the law of Scotland. If the conduct complained of appears to be wrongful, the law of Scotland will afford a remedy even if there has not been any previous instance of a remedy being given in similar circumstances'. While some terms such as assault and defamation are used in systems of tort law, their technical meanings differ in Scottish delict.
Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller & Partners Ltd [1964] AC 465 is an English tort law case on economic loss in English tort law resulting from a negligent misstatement. Prior to the decision, the notion that a party may owe another a duty of care for statements made in reliance had been rejected, with the only remedy for such losses being in contract law. The House of Lords overruled the previous position, in recognising liability for pure economic loss not arising from a contractual relationship, applying to commercial negligence the principle of "assumption of responsibility".
In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation that is imposed on an individual, requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care to avoid careless acts that could foreseeably harm others, and lead to claim in negligence. It is the first element that must be established to proceed with an action in negligence. The claimant must be able to show a duty of care imposed by law that the defendant has breached. In turn, breaching a duty may subject an individual to liability. The duty of care may be imposed by operation of law between individuals who have no current direct relationship but eventually become related in some manner, as defined by common law.
English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil, rather than criminal law, that usually requires a payment of money to make up for damage that is caused. Alongside contracts and unjust enrichment, tort law is usually seen as forming one of the three main pillars of the law of obligations.
Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co Ltd[1970] UKHL 2, [1970] AC 1004 is a leading case in English tort law. It is a House of Lords decision on negligence and marked the start of a rapid expansion in the scope of negligence in the United Kingdom by widening the circumstances in which a court was likely to find a duty of care. The case also addressed the liability of government bodies, a person's liability for the acts of third parties that he has facilitated, and liability for omissions.
Caparo Industries PLC v Dickman[1990] UKHL 2 is a leading English tort law case on the test for a duty of care. The House of Lords, following the Court of Appeal, set out a "three-fold test". In order for a duty of care to arise in negligence:
In the English law of tort, professional negligence is a subset of the general rules on negligence to cover the situation in which the defendant has represented him or herself as having more than average skills and abilities. The usual rules rely on establishing that a duty of care is owed by the defendant to the claimant, and that the defendant is in breach of that duty. The standard test of breach is whether the defendant has matched the abilities of a reasonable person. But, by virtue of the services they offer and supply, professional people hold themselves out as having more than average abilities. This specialised set of rules determines the standards against which to measure the legal quality of the services actually delivered by those who claim to be among the best in their fields of expertise.
Canadian tort law is composed of two parallel systems: a common law framework outside Québec and a civil law framework within Québec. Outside Québec, Canadian tort law originally derives from that of England and Wales but has developed distinctly since Canadian Confederation in 1867 and has been influenced by jurisprudence in other common law jurisdictions. Meanwhile, while private law as a whole in Québec was originally derived from that which existed in France at the time of Québec's annexation into the British Empire, it was overhauled and codified first in the Civil Code of Lower Canada and later in the current Civil Code of Quebec, which codifies most elements of tort law as part of its provisions on the broader law of obligations. As most aspects of tort law in Canada are the subject of provincial jurisdiction under the Canadian Constitution, tort law varies even between the country's common law provinces and territories.
In English tort law, an individual may owe a duty of care to another, in order to ensure that they do not suffer any unreasonable harm or loss. If such a duty is found to be breached, a legal liability will be imposed upon the tortfeasor to compensate the victim for any losses they incur. The idea of individuals owing strangers a duty of care – where beforehand such duties were only found from contractual arrangements – developed at common law, throughout the 20th century. The doctrine was significantly developed in the case of Donoghue v Stevenson, where a woman succeeded in establishing a manufacturer of ginger beer owed her a duty of care, where it had been negligently produced. Following this, the duty concept has expanded into a coherent judicial test, which must be satisfied in order to claim in negligence.
Causation in English law concerns the legal tests of remoteness, causation and foreseeability in the tort of negligence. It is also relevant for English criminal law and English contract law.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law in common law jurisdictions:
South Australia Asset Management Corporation v York Montague Ltd and Banque Bruxelles Lambert SA v Eagle Star Insurance Co Ltd [1996] UKHL 10 is a joined English contract law case on causation and remoteness of damage. It arose out of the property crash in the early 1990s, whereby banks were suing valuers for overpricing houses in order to recover the lost market value. Owners themselves often had little or no money, since they had fallen victim to negative equity, so mortgage lenders would pursue a valuer instead to recover some losses. The legal principle arising from the case is often referred to as the "SAAMCO principle".
Tort law in India is primarily governed by judicial precedent as in other common law jurisdictions, supplemented by statutes governing damages, civil procedure, and codifying common law torts. As in other common law jurisdictions, a tort is breach of a non-contractual duty which has caused damage to the plaintiff giving rise to a civil cause of action and for which remedy is available. If a remedy does not exist, a tort has not been committed since the rationale of tort law is to provide a remedy to the person who has been wronged.
Oldham v Kyrris[2003] EWCA Civ 1506 is a UK insolvency law case concerning the administration procedure when a company is unable to repay its debts.
Three Rivers DC v Governor of the Bank of England [2001 UKHL 16] is a UK banking law and EU law case concerning government liability for the protection of depositors and the preliminary ruling procedure in the European Union.
Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire[1987] UKHL 12, [1989] AC 53 was a judicial decision of the House of Lords in relation to the claim by the mother of Jacqueline Hill against West Yorkshire Police that their negligence in failing to apprehend the killer resulted in her daughter's death.
Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police[2018] UKSC 4 is a leading English tort law case on the test for finding a duty of care. An elderly woman was injured by two police officers attempting to arrest a suspect and she claimed that the police owed her a duty of care not to be put in danger. The UK Supreme Court found that the police did owe a duty of care in this case as there was no general rule that the police are not under any duty of care when performing their duties.
Spandeck Engineering v Defence Science and Technology Agency [2007] SGCA 37 was a landmark decision in Singapore law. It established a new framework for establishing a duty of care, differentiating the Singaporean law of tort from past English common law precedent such as Caparo v Dickman and Anns v Merton, whilst also allowing for claims in pure economic loss, which are generally not allowed in English law.
