Unit III — Negligence, Nuisance & Strict Liability

“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

Negligence is the breach of a legal duty to take care, causing damage. Its three essentials: (1) a duty of care owed to the plaintiff (the neighbour principle — Donoghue v. Stevenson, 1932), (2) breach of that duty (failing the reasonable-man standard), and (3) damage caused by the breach and not too remote.

Allied doctrines: res ipsa loquitur (“the thing speaks for itself”) shifts the burden to the defendant where the harm-causing thing was under his exclusive control and the accident would not ordinarily happen without negligence (Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Subhagwanti, 1966 — the collapse of a clock tower under the Corporation’s control). Contributory negligence by the plaintiff reduces (or, historically, barred) recovery. Nervous shock is actionable where a recognisable illness results from a reasonably foreseeable shock, even without physical impact (Bourhill v. Young; the Indian Halligua line).

Nuisance

Nuisance is unreasonable interference with a person’s use or enjoyment of land, or with a public right.

Private nuisance — interference with your land or its comfortable enjoyment (noise, smell, smoke, vibration, encroachment). The interference must be substantial and unreasonable; the test balances locality, duration and the defendant’s conduct (St. Helen’s Smelting v. Tipping).
Public nuisance — interference with a right common to the public (obstructing a highway). It is primarily a crime; a private person may sue only on proof of special damage over and above that suffered by the general public.

Strict & Absolute Liability

flowchart TD
    A["Liability without fault"]:::root
    A --> B["Strict liability<br/>Rylands v Fletcher (1868)<br/>escape of a dangerous thing —<br/>WITH exceptions"]:::leaf
    A --> C["Absolute liability<br/>M.C. Mehta (1987)<br/>hazardous industry —<br/>NO exceptions, NO escape needed"]:::abs

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    classDef leaf fill:#E6F3FF,stroke:#1E3A8A,color:#000;
    classDef abs fill:#FFE6E6,stroke:#8A1E1E,color:#000;
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Rylands v. Fletcher (1868) — one who, for his own purposes, brings onto his land and keeps a dangerous thing which escapes and causes harm is liable even without fault, provided the use was non-natural. Exceptions: plaintiff’s own default, act of God, act of a stranger, consent, and statutory authority.
Absolute liability — M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (1987), the Oleum Gas Leak case, fashioned a stricter Indian rule: an enterprise engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous activity is absolutely liable for any harm it causes, with no exceptions and no need to prove escape — and the compensation is correlated to the enterprise’s capacity to pay. Applied in the Bhopal litigation.

Remoteness of Damage & Remedies

A defendant answers only for harm not too remote. The old directness test (Re Polemis, 1921) gave way to the modern reasonable-foreseeability test (Overseas Tankship v. Morts Dock — The Wagon Mound, 1961): a defendant is liable only for consequences a reasonable person could foresee. Remedies are damages (nominal, compensatory, or exemplary), injunction, and specific restitution of property, plus limited self-help such as abatement of a nuisance.

✏️ Sample Solved Problem (IRAC Method)

Problem: A throws a lighted squib into a crowded market; it lands near B, who flings it away to save himself; it then lands near C, who does the same; it finally explodes in D’s face and blinds him. Who is liable to D?

I — Issue

Whether A, who threw the squib, is liable for D’s injury, or whether the intervening acts of B and C broke the chain of causation.

R — Rule

A wrongdoer is liable for harm that is the natural and probable consequence of his act; intervening acts done in the agony of the moment, in reasonable self-preservation, do not break the chain of causation (novus actus interveniens).
Scott v. Shepherd (1773) — the “lighted squib” case — held the original thrower liable, the intermediate tossings being instinctive, protective reactions, not free, voluntary acts.

A — Analysis

The decoy is that B and C each physically threw the squib that finally injured D, suggesting they caused it. But neither acted as a free agent: each flung the squib away reflexively to save himself from A’s dangerous act, and such instinctive self-protective acts are treated in law as a continuation of A’s original wrong, not as new, independent causes. A’s act of throwing a lighted squib into a crowd set the whole sequence in motion and made D’s injury its natural and probable result.

C — Conclusion

A is liable to D. The reflexive acts of B and C in self-preservation did not break the chain of causation; the original wrongdoer answers for the foreseeable result of throwing a lighted squib into a crowd (Scott v. Shepherd).

📄 The full bundle (₹199) has the complete Unit III — negligence, nuisance, strict/absolute liability, remoteness and remedies with blueprints — plus the Question Bank’s model answers to the escaped-lion, flour-mill, nervous-shock and res ipsa loquitur problems. Get Notes + Question Bank — ₹199