Dut of Care

Legal Studies Assignment 2

Q1.

‘Define the word negligence as it applies in English law and explain the main ingredients of the tort of negligence’ Under English law, negligence amounts to a "breach of the duty of care" where a person/organisation must have breached a duty to another person, or infringed some pre-existing legal right, for example accidentally hitting someone with a cricket ball. Negligence law or tort of negligence is the most common form of tort – a civil wrong. A tort is where conduct of one party causes or poses harm physically or financially to other parties and does not need a pre-defined contract and in other words, rights and duties are to everyone by everyone thus any injured party can make a claim against the party responsible for the injury. Negligence has to be proven in order to obtain damages. Examples of negligence cases include road accidents, where an injured person can only claim damages if they can prove that the other person was negligent, also in medical negligence - where a patient has been injured during medical treatment, the patient must prove the doctor was negligent. If negligence cannot be proven, the injured party cannot obtain damages. There are three ingredients that need qualifying to prove negligence within English law. These ingredients are: 1. A duty of care exists In some cases the law assumes that a duty of care already exists e.g. it is assumed that all road users owe a duty to all other road users and that doctors owe a duty to patients, teachers owe a duty to pupils etc. In cases where it is not clear that a duty exists, several tests have developed over the years to help in deciding. The most important case can be illustrated by Donoghue v Stevenson1. Mrs Donoghue ordered an opaque bottle of ginger beer in a cafe in Paisley. After consuming half of it she poured the rest into a tumbler. The decomposing remains of a dead snail floated out and she fell ill, she sued the manufacturer for allowing the drink...