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Tort - General Negligence: Remoteness of Damage (General test (Classifying…
Tort - General Negligence: Remoteness of Damage
Considers the link between the breach of the defendant and the exact loss suffered by the claimant
Courts look to decide whether an exact loss is too remote and therefore unrecoverable - depends on policy - Lamb v Camden (1981)
General test
Claimant must prove their loss was reasonably foreseeable as a result of the defendant's breach
Wagon Mound (No 1) (1961)
Objective - what type of loss would a reasonable man in the defendant's position at the time of the breach have been able to foresee?
Application
Relationship with duty of care - Page v Smith (1996)
Nervous shock (psychiatric injury) - court treated personal injury as single indivisible type of harm
Lord Lloyd: "whether the defendant can reasonably foresee that his conduct will expose the plaintiff to the risk of personal injury, whether physical or psychiatric"
Classifying the type of loss
Bradford v Robinson (1967)
Frostbite - defendant could have foreseen a cold related injury - wide definition
Tremain v Pike (1969)
Weil's disease from rat's urine - defendant could not have foreseen a disease contracted through rat's urine - narrow definition
Lamb v Camden (2004)
A-G v Hartwell (2004)
Only type of loss must be foreseeable, not the extent
Thin skull rule
Smith v Leech Brain (1962)
Negligent burning provoked onset of pre-existing malignant cancer - if original injury is foreseeable, defendant is responsible for anything that flows from injury even if claimant suffers from pre-existing condition
Robinson v Post Office
Corr v IBC Vehicles (2008)
Suicide resulting from depression caused by accident at work - foreseeable that would suffer psychological symptoms as a result of accident - death by suicide element of foreseeable injury
Lord Bingham quoted from judgement in Simmons v British Steel (2004) as to type of harm which must be foreseen...
1) Defendant liable even if damage may be much greater in extent than was foreseeable - can only escape injury if damage differs from kind which was foreseeable (Hughes v Lord Advocate (1963))
Where it is established that physical injury foreseeable, unnecessary to ask whether psychiatric harm was also foreseeable (Page v Smith)
Page v Smith (1996)
Lagden v O'Connor (2004)
Recovery of hire charges by claimant who hired vehicle on credit while waiting for defendant's insurers to repair his car - could not afford to pay for repairs himself - reasonably foreseeable that would have to borrow money or incur some other kind of expenditure to mitigate damages - defendant liable for full extent of economic loss even that caused by impecuniosity
Overruled previous decision in Liesbosche Dredger v SS Edison (1933) - from when 'thin skull' did not extend to impecuniosity - argued that Liesbosch was decided when test for remoteness was that of directness, as laid down in Re Polemis
Defendant liable for full extent of injuries
Vacwell Engineering v BDH Chemicals (1971) - explosion foreseeabe, even if not extent - still liable for full amount - property damage caused by explosion foreseeable
Only type of damage must be foreseeable not the exact way in which the loss is caused
Hughes v Lord Advocate (1963)
Oil lamp left unattended by workmen surrounding hole in road - damage from severe burns foreseeable as damage by fire forseeable - no need to foresee exact way
This approach usually followed
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Doughty v Turner Manufacturing (1964)
Contrast to Hughes - explosion caused when asbestos lid cover dropped into vat of zinc - unforeseeable by reasonable man at time accident happened - damage from splashing foreseeable, but there was intrusion of a new and unexpected factor aha chemical change of compound asbestos cement at high temperatures
A-G v Hartwell (2004)
Start by considering exact type of damage suffered
If that is unforeseeable then see whether a more general type of damage is foreseeable - explain discretion available to judges
If the loss is not reasonably foreseeable then see whether thin skull/personality/wallet rule could apply