Tort Law
Negligence dominates the tort paper: duty, breach, causation and remoteness, tested through fact patterns that require you to apply the test rather than recite it.
Occupiers’ liability, vicarious liability and defences (contributory negligence, consent) are the recurring secondary patterns.
- The duty of care and the three-stage Caparo test
- Breach, causation and remoteness of damage
- Occupiers’ liability to visitors and non-visitors
- Vicarious liability and defences
See the format
Written for this page only, in the same single best answer format as the 240+ questions in the Tort Law section of the course.
A council carries out a statutory inspection of a footbridge but fails to notice a defect that a competent inspection would have found. The bridge later gives way, injuring a pedestrian. The council argues that, even applying the modern approach to a novel duty of care, no duty arises on these facts. Which combination of elements must the pedestrian establish to show that a duty of care existed?
Whether a duty of care exists in a novel situation is assessed using the three-stage test: foreseeability of harm, proximity between the parties, and whether it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty. The second option describes the standard for breach, not duty. The third describes causation and remoteness, only relevant once a duty and its breach are established. The fourth assumes a contractual relationship not present on these facts, and the fifth applies an unreasonableness-style test that has no role in an ordinary negligence claim.
Authority: Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605.
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