The Tort of negligence.

Negligence ANd special duty SITUations

The tort of negligence

I. Introduction
In any society of people living together, numerous conflicts of interest will
arise, and the actions of one person may cause or threaten damage to others.
This damage may take many forms: for example, injury to the person, damage
to physical property, financial loss, injury to reputation. The law of tort aims to
provide redress, i.e. it is concerned with the allocation or the prevention of
losses. Negligence has developed as a specific tort tending to overshadow all
other torts.

II. Negligence liability ( Trách nhiệm do sơ suất)

 The tort of negligence gives rights to persons who have suffered
damage to themselves or to their property, against a party who has
failed to take reasonable care for those persons’ safety. (Việc sơ
suất mang lại quyền cho những người bị thiệt hại về bản thân hoặc
tài sản của họ, chống lại một bên đã không quan tâm hợp lý đến sự
an toàn của những người đó.)
 To be successful in a claim of negligence, the claimant must prove
that: ( Để thành công trong việc khiếu nại do sơ suất, người yêu cầu
bồi thường phải chứng minh rằng:)
 Duty of care : Nghĩa vụ chăm sóc
 Breach of that duty: Phạm vi nhiệm vụ
 Proving consequential loss or damage: Chứng
minh mất mát hoặc thiệt hại do hậu quả
1. Duty of care
 The claimant must be able to show that he or she is someone
who, in the circumstances, the defendant should have had in
mind when embarking on the course of conduct which led to the
alleged damage. ( Người yêu cầu bồi thường phải có khả năng
chứng minh rằng họ là người mà trong các trường hợp, bị đơn
cần phải lưu ý khi bắt tay vào quá trình thực hiện dẫn đến thiệt
hại bị cáo buộc.)
 A person undertaking an activity or course of behaviour owes a
duty not to harm any person reasonably expected to be caused
 loss/damage as a result. ( Một người thực hiện một hoạt động
hoặc quá trình hành vi có nghĩa vụ không được gây tổn hại cho
bất kỳ người nào được cho là có thể gây ra tổn thất / thiệt hại do
kết quả.)
 When deciding whether a duty of care exists in any negligence
action, the court must take into account whether the following
criteria are satisfied: ( Khi quyết định xem nghĩa vụ chăm sóc có
tồn tại trong bất kỳ hành động sơ suất nào hay không, tòa án
phải xem xét liệu các tiêu chí sau có được đáp ứng hay không:)
a) Peasonable foreseeability: Khả năng dự đoán hợp lý
b) Proximity: Khoảng cách gần:
c) Public interest/policy: Chính sách / lợi ích công:

2. Breach of that duty : Vi phạm nghĩa vụ đó

 Breach of duty occurs when a person’s conduct fails to meet an
applicable standard of care. It is one of the four elements of
negligence. ( Vi phạm trách nhiệm xảy ra khi hành vi của một
người không đáp ứng tiêu chuẩn chăm sóc áp dụng. Đó là một
trong bốn yếu tố của sự cẩu thả.)
 If the defendant’s conduct fails to meet the required standard of
care, they are said to have breached that duty. ( Nếu hành vi của
bị đơn không đáp ứng tiêu chuẩn chăm sóc cần thiết, họ được
cho là đã vi phạm nghĩa vụ. )
 The defendant’s standard of care varies depending on the
relationship between the plaintiff and defendant: ( Tiêu chuẩn
chăm sóc của bị đơn thay đổi tùy thuộc vào mối quan hệ giữa
nguyên đơn và bị đơn:)
a) Ordinary negligence: Sơ suất thông thường:
For ordinary negligence claims, a plaintiff proves that the defendant
breached their duty of care by failing to act as a reasonable person
would under the same circumstances. ( Đối với các khiếu nại do sơ
suất thông thường, nguyên đơn chứng minh rằng bị đơn đã vi phạm
nghĩa vụ chăm sóc của họ bằng cách không hành động như một
người hợp lý trong những trường hợp tương tự.)
b) Professional Negligence : Sơ suất nghề nghiệp
This standard applies when a professional provides a service to
someone, for example, when a doctor treats a patient. It is that degree
of care that is exercised by other competent professionals under similar
circumstances. ( Tiêu chuẩn này áp dụng khi một chuyên gia cung
cấp dịch vụ cho ai đó, chẳng hạn khi bác sĩ điều trị cho bệnh nhân. Đó
là mức độ chăm sóc được thực hiện bởi các chuyên gia có năng lực
khác trong những trường hợp tương tự.)
c) The Burden of proof In Negligence, Res Ipsa Loquitur And
Negligence Per Se ( Gánh nặng của bằng chứng Khi sơ suất, Res Ipsa
Loquitur và Sơ suất Per Se)

3.Legislation relating to the standard of care: Luật pháp liên quan đến
tiêu chuẩn chăm sóc:
 The Compensation Act 2006: Đạo luật bồi thường năm 2006
Section 1 states that when a court is deciding whether a defendant has
taken reasonable care it may: Phần 1 quy định rằng khi tòa án quyết
định xem bị đơn có chăm sóc hợp lý hay không thì có thể:

have regard to whether a requirement to take those steps might : xem

xét liệu một yêu cầu để thực hiện các bước đó có thể:
 Prevent a desirable activity from being
undertaken at all, to a particular extent or in a
particular way: Ngăn chặn hoàn toàn một hoạt
động mong muốn không được thực hiện, ở
một mức độ cụ thể hoặc theo một cách cụ thể
 Discourage persons from undertaking
functions in connection with a desirable
activity: Ngăn cản những người đảm nhận các
chức năng liên quan đến một hoạt động mong
muốn.
4. The burden of proof in negligence and res ipsa loquitur
 The burden of proof in negligence actions normally falls on the
claimant. However, the burden of proof can be shifted by the
doctrine of ‘res ipsa loquitur ’ (the thing speaks for itself). In such
circumstances an inference of negligence can be drawn from the
facts and the burden of proof transfers from the claimant to the
defendant to explain how the accident could have happened
without negligence on the defendant’s part.
 The following conditions must be satisfied for the rule to apply.
 Defendant must have exclusive control over the thing that
caused the damage.
 The cause of the accident must be such as would not
normally happen without negligence.
 The cause of the accident must be unknown.
5. Proving consequential loss or damage
a) Causation in fact: the ‘but for’ rule
 The “but for” cause asks, “Would the plaintiff have
suffered the injury if defendant hadn’t acted
carelessly?” In other words, but for defendant’s
action or inaction would plaintiff have been
 damaged?
 Let’s say Tam drops a banana peel on his
home’s entranceway and leaves it there. Uyen
comes by and slips on the peel. If the Tam
hadn’t left the peel there the Uyen would not
have tripped so we can say that Tam
sloppiness was the “but for” cause of Uyen
injury. Done! Uyen will be able to establish the
causation element of his negligence case.
b) Causation in law (remoteness of damage)
 The damage must not be too remote. The defendant is not held
legally responsible for all the results of the breach.
 The law treats intentional and unintentional torts differently as
regards determining remoteness. We are presumed to intend all
the direct consequences of our intentional acts, so in a tort like
trespass the defendant will be liable for all the direct
consequences regardless of whether they could reasonably
have been foreseen

4.Defences in tort
Solved Question on General Defences in Tort

Q. Which among these is not a General Defence.

A. Mistake

B. Private Defence

C. Inevitable Accident

D. Public Defence

Ans: The correct option is d.

 Negligence and special duty situations

I. Introduction

II. Special duty situations

1. Pure economic loss
a) Definition:
 Pure economic loss is a financial loss that is not related to
physical damage or personal injury.
For example: Loss of income suffered by a family whose principal
earner dies in an accident. The physical injury is caused to the
deceased, not the family.
b) When not recoverable?
 Loss resulting from damage to property belonging to a 3rd party
 Loss due to a defective product
c) When recoverable?
 Loss caused by negligent misstatement
 Loss caused by negligent provision of services
 Loss caused by breach of statutory duty
2. Neglignet statements ( video)
 Hedley Byrne: HL did not decide that a person had a duty to take
care in making statements whenever a damage/ loss was
foreseeable:
 Reasonable foreseeability of loss criterion: rejected as giving
rise to potentially too wide a liability in order to establish a duty
of careo
 Criterion for establishing duty of care: Proximity must exist in the
context of special relationship between the partie
 If, in a sphere in which a person is so placed that others could
reasonably rely on his judgment or his skill or on his ability to make
careful enquiry... a person takes it on himself to give information or
advice to or allows his information or advice to be passed on to
another person who, as he knows or should know, will place reliance
on it, then a duty of care will arise.
3. Nervous schock:
The rules determining duty of care for nervous shock are different
according to whether the claimant is categorised as a primary or a
secondary victim of the accident caused by the defendant. Primary
victims were defined as those directly involved in the accident, who, as
a result, have been physically hurt or reasonably put in fear for their
own safety.

4. Omissions to act and liability for damage caused by third

parties_video
 The first section considers when and why the courts have
established that a duty of care should be owed by defendants
when the harm was the result of their omission, and the second
explores the situations when a defendant may owe a duty in
relation to the action(s) of a third party. Ordinarily you can be
liable only for things that you do, but when someone does not do
something that they ought to have done a duty might be found.
Similarly, while it appears odd that someone may be liable for
harms that someone else caused, the courts have nonetheless
found that in limited circumstances people who have
responsibility for, or control over, others may incur a duty in
respect of the harms caused by these third parties.
5. Public authorities and statutory discretion
 Public service providers, such as the fire brigade, the police and
local authorities, operate in the context of statutory duties and
powers. Such duties are mandatory but often widely drafted,
leaving a large element of discretion to the authority about how it
is implemented. For example, a local authority must provide full-
time education for children in its catchment area, but how it does
so is left largely to its discretion.
 The statutory duty exists to benefit the public at large through
the provision of services relevant to local needs. The courts
have traditionally been unwilling to permit a duty of care in
negligence to be owed by a public authority to individual
members of the public who claim to be harmed by the way the
authority has used its statutory discretion in performing its public
duties. Usually, such claims arise where an omission to exercise
the power is allegedly the cause of the damage or where a third
party is actually responsible for the harm. These factors
combined with the desire of the courts not to fetter discretion
derived from Parliament makes them particularly reluctant to
impose a duty of care. Policy plays a very important role in such
circumstances.