Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances.
Piercing the corporate veil or lifting the corporate veil is a legal decision to treat the rights or duties of a corporation as the rights or liabilities of its shareholders. Usually a corporation is treated as a separate legal person, which is solely responsible for the debts it incurs and the sole beneficiary of the credit it is owed. Common law countries usually uphold this principle of separate personhood, but in exceptional situations may "pierce" or "lift" the corporate veil.
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 law, 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.
Anns v Merton London Borough Council[1977] UKHL 4, [1978] AC 728 was a decision of the House of Lords that 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. The case was overruled by Murphy v Brentwood DC [1991].
Economic torts, which are also called business torts, are torts that provide the common law rules on liability which arise out of business transactions such as interference with economic or business relationships and are likely to involve pure economic loss.
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:
Heaven v Pender (1883) was an English tort law case, which foreshadowed the birth of the modern law of negligence.
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916) is a famous New York Court of Appeals opinion by Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo that removed the requirement of privity of contract for duty in negligence actions.
Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433 is a UK company law case on separate legal personality and limited liability of shareholders. The case also addressed long-standing issues under the English conflict of laws as to when a company would be resident in a foreign jurisdiction such that the English courts would recognise the foreign court's jurisdiction over the company. It has in effect been superseded by Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc, which held that a parent company could be liable for the actions of a subsidiary on ordinary principles of tort law.
Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd is a tort law case from the High Court of Australia, which decided it would abolish the rule in Rylands v Fletcher, and the ignis suus principle, incorporating them generally into the tort of negligence.
Candler v Crane, Christmas & Co [1951] 2 KB 164 is an English tort law case on negligent misstatement.
Chandler v Cape plc [2012] EWCA Civ 525 is a decision of the Court of Appeal which addresses the availability of damages for a tort victim from a parent company, in circumstances where the victim suffered industrial injury during employment by a subsidiary company.
Connelly v RTZ Corporation plc[1997] UKHL 30, [1999] CLC 533 is a conflicts of laws case, important for UK company law and English tort law, concerning the claim of a worker in Namibia attempting to sue an employer headquartered in the United Kingdom for breach of the duty of care to ensure proper health and safety in the workplace.
Spring v Guardian Assurance plc[1994] UKHL 7, [1995] 2 AC 296 is a UK labour law and English tort law case, concerning the duty to provide accurate information when writing an employee reference.
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.
HRH the Maharanee of Baroda v Wildenstein, was a decision of the English Court of Appeal relating to the conflict of laws, and specifically whether the English courts should take jurisdiction in relation to a claim which had no substantial connections with England on the basis that the defendant was served with proceedings during a brief visit to the country.
Lungowe v. Vedanta Resources plc [2019] UKSC 20 is a UK company law and English tort law case, concerning business liability for human rights violations, environmental damage and the duty of care owed by a parent company.
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.
