Donoghue v Stevenson (1932)

Law of Torts · Negligence

Facts.

May Donoghue went to a café in Paisley with a friend, who bought her a bottle of ginger beer. The bottle was of dark opaque glass. She drank part of it; when the remainder was poured out, the decomposed remains of a snail floated out. She became seriously ill. She had no contract with anyone, since her friend had made the purchase.

Issue.

Does a manufacturer owe a duty of care to the ultimate consumer of his product, in the absence of any contract between them?

Held.

Yes. The House of Lords held that a manufacturer who sells products in a form showing that he intends them to reach the consumer in the form in which they left him, with no reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, owes the consumer a duty to take reasonable care. Lord Atkin formulated the neighbour principle.

Why it matters.

It converted a scattered collection of duty situations into a general law of negligence, and it is the single most cited case in the subject. It also demolishes the privity objection, which is why it answers the defective-product problems in Units 3 and 5 alike.

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