Negligence — Duty, Breach & Damage

“You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour.” — Lord Atkin, Donoghue v. Stevenson (1932)

Negligence is the breach of a legal duty to take care which results in damage to the plaintiff. It is the most heavily litigated tort of all.

The Three Essentials

flowchart TD
    A["Negligence requires…"]:::root
    A --> B["1. DUTY of care owed to the plaintiff<br/>(the neighbour principle — Donoghue v. Stevenson)"]:::leaf
    A --> C["2. BREACH of that duty<br/>(failing the reasonable-man standard)"]:::leaf
    A --> D["3. DAMAGE caused by the breach<br/>and not too remote"]:::leaf

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    classDef leaf fill:#E6F3FF,stroke:#1E3A8A,color:#000;
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Duty of care — Donoghue v. Stevenson (1932) established the neighbour principle: you owe a duty to persons so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought reasonably to have them in contemplation. (A manufacturer of ginger beer owed a duty to the ultimate consumer who found a decomposed snail in the bottle.)
Breach — measured against the reasonable man: what a prudent person would have foreseen and guarded against, weighing the likelihood and seriousness of harm against the cost of precautions.
Damage — the breach must have caused actual, legally recognised damage that is not too remote.

Contributory Negligence & Nervous Shock

Contributory negligence — where the plaintiff’s own carelessness contributed to the harm, his damages are reduced in proportion to his share of fault (historically it barred recovery entirely).
Nervous shock — a recognisable psychiatric illness caused by a reasonably foreseeable shock is actionable even without physical impact (Bourhill v. Young; the Indian Halligua line) — provided the shock and resulting illness were foreseeable.

Closely tied to negligence is res ipsa loquitur — where the accident itself implies negligence. See the dedicated page →

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