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Good afternoon, today I will be discussing the importance of the Donoghue V Stevenson 1932 case. For those who aren’t familiar with the particular case, I’ll start by giving a quick recap.

The events of the case took place in Scotland in 1928, when Ms May Donoghue was given a bottle of ginger beer, purchased by a friend. The bottle was later discovered to contain a decomposing snail. Since the bottle was not of clear glass, Donoghue was not aware of the snail until she had consumed most of its contents. She later fell ill and was diagnosed with gastroenteritis by a doctor and suffered severe shock – otherwise referred to as mental harm.

Donoghue subsequently took legal action against the manufacturer of the ginger beer, Stevenson and sought to recover damages. However, because her friend had purchased the drink, Donoghue could not sue on the basis that a contract had been breached; instead her lawyers claimed that Stevenson had a duty of care to his consumers and that he had caused injury through negligence. By a majority decision, the House of Lords held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover damages against the manufacturer in negligence.

This famous case is important as it established the civil law tort of negligence and obliged manufacturers to have a duty of care towards their customers. All manufacturers of products bear responsibility for any damage that their products cause, even if the sufferer did not buy the product themselves (e.g. it might have been a present).

This case therefore also established the ‘neighbor’ principle. It was the speech of Lord Atkins that was most influential. He said, ``you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbor.”

This established a new category of duties involving manufactures. Atkin raised the question of which people may be directly affected by our actions, our conduct or things we manufacture.

Just as a quick summary...