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.
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 was a landmark court decision in Scots delict law and English tort law by the House of Lords. It laid the foundation of the modern law of negligence in common law jurisdictions worldwide, as well as in Scotland, establishing general principles of the duty of care.
In law, liable means "responsible or answerable in law; legally obligated". Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law and can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, torts, taxes, or fines given by government agencies. The claimant is the one who seeks to establish, or prove, liability.
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".
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.
Rylands v Fletcher (1868) LR 3 HL 330 is a leading decision by the House of Lords which established a new area of English tort law. It established the rule that one's non-natural use of their land, which leads to another's land being damaged as a result of dangerous things emanating from the land, is strictly liable.
Anns v Merton London Borough Council[1977] UKHL 4, [1978] AC 728 was a decision of the House of Lords. It established a broad test for determining the existence of a duty of care in the tort of negligence called the Anns test or sometimes the two-stage test for true third-party negligence. This case was overruled by Murphy v Brentwood DC [1991].
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.
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.
Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock and Engineering Co Ltd, commonly known as Wagon Mound , is a landmark tort law case, which imposed a remoteness rule for causation in negligence. The Privy Council held that a party can be held liable only for loss that was reasonably foreseeable. Contributory negligence on the part of the dock owners was also relevant in the decision, and was essential to the outcome, although not central to this case's legal significance.
Smith v Littlewoods Organisation Ltd [1987] UKHL 18 was a House of Lords decision on duty of care in the tort of negligence. It was specifically concerning the potential liability for the wrongdoing of third parties.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law in common law jurisdictions:
Candler v Crane, Christmas & Co [1951] 2 KB 164 is an English tort law case on negligent misstatement.
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. An ultra vires action will not, per se, give rise to damages 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).
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".
Dutton v Bognor Regis Urban District Council [1972] 1 QB 373 is an English contract law and English tort law case concerning defective premises and the limits of contract damages. It was disapproved by the House of Lords in Murphy v Brentwood DC and is now bad law except in Canada and New Zealand.
The floodgates principle, or the floodgates argument, is a legal principle which is sometimes applied by judges to restrict or limit the right to make claims for damages because of a concern that permitting a claimant to recover in such situations might open the metaphorical "floodgates" to large numbers of claims and lawsuits. The principle is most frequently cited in common law jurisdictions, and in English tort law in particular.
Lamb v Camden LBC[1981] EWCA Civ 7, [1981] QB 625 is a leading case in English tort law. It is a Court of Appeal decision on negligence and the test of reasonable foreseeability of damage, especially where the damage has been caused by third parties not the defendant him or herself.
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.
