Assumption of Responsibility in UK Law

Secondly, it was established that once a case is identified as falling within the extended Hedley Byrne principle, there is no need to embark on any further inquiry whether it is "fair, just and reasonable" to impose liability for economic loss. Thirdly, and applying Hedley Byrne, it was made clear that "reliance upon [the assumption of responsibility] by the other party will be necessary to establish a cause of action (because otherwise the negligence will have no causative effect)."

I do not accept that, in all cases, the obligation to take reasonable care necessarily depends upon a voluntary assumption of responsibility, Even if it did, I am far from satisfied that the Council did not voluntarily assume responsibility in the present case.

Her duty was to advise the school and the LEA. Miss Melling was doing no more than discharging her duty to the defendants to enable them to perform their statutory functions. The court ought to be slow to superimpose on a duty which the employee owed his employer, the defendants, a further duty towards the plaintiff, in the absence of very clear evidence that the employee has undertaken such responsibility.

What emerges is that, in addition to the foreseeability of damage, necessary ingredients in any situation giving rise to a duty of care are that there should exist between the party owing the duty and the party to whom it is owed a relationship characterised by the law as one of "proximity" or "neighbourhood" and that the situation should be one in which the court considers it fair, just and reasonable that the law should impose a duty of a given scope upon the one party for the benefit of the other.

Furthermore, if in a sphere in which a person is so placed that others could reasonably rely upon his judgment or his skill or upon his ability to make careful inquiry, a person takes it upon 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 upon it, then a duty of care will arise.

I do not question his opinion that the requirement of s.3(4)that the court 'should have regard to the extent to which and the basis upon which the deceased assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the applicant and to the length of time for which the deceased discharged that responsibility' implies or 'assumes' (in another sense) that at the first stage, when the court is considering the applicant's right to apply under s. 1(1)(e), he must prove that the deceased did 'assume responsibility' for his maintenance.