Breach of Duty of Care in UK Law

Leading Cases
  • Wooldridge v Sumner
    • Court of Appeal
    • 04 Junio 1962

    The maxim in English law presupposes a tortious act by the defendant. The consent that is relevant is not consent to the risk of Injury butconsent to the lack of reasonable care that may produce that risk (see Kelly v. Tarrants Ltd. 1954 Northern Ireland Reports page 41 per Lord MacDermott at page 45) and requires on the part of the plaintiff at the time at which he gives his consent full knowledge of the nature and extent of the risk that he ran.

  • Dorset Yacht Company Ltd v Home Office
    • House of Lords
    • 06 Mayo 1970

    Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562 may be regarded as a milestone, and the well-known passage in Lord Atkin's speech should I think be regarded as a statement of principle. It is not to be treated as if it were a statutory definition. But I think that the time has come when we can and should say that it ought to apply unless there is some justification or valid explanation for its exclusion.

  • Reeves v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
    • House of Lords
    • 15 Julio 1999

    People of full age and sound understanding must look after themselves and take responsibility for their actions. This philosophy expresses itself in the fact that duties to safeguard from harm deliberately caused by others are unusual and a duty to protect a person of full understanding from causing harm to himself is very rare indeed.

  • Smith v Littlewoods Organisation Ltd; Maloco v Littlewoods Organisation Ltd
    • House of Lords
    • 05 Febrero 1987

    This dictum may be read as expressing the general idea that the voluntary act of another, independent of the defender's fault, is regarded as a novus actus interveniens which, to use the old metaphor, "breaks the chain of causation." Of course, if a duty of care is imposed to guard against deliberate wrongdoing by others, it can hardly be said that the harmful effects of such wrongdoing are not caused by such breach of duty.

  • Berger v Eli Lilly & Company
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 28 Agosto 1992

    We do not accept this submission. It was not, in our judgment, the intention of Parliament to require for the purposes of section 11 and section 14 of the Act proof of knowledge of the terms in which it will be alleged that the act or omission of the defendants constituted negligence or breach of duty. What is required is knowledge of the essence of the act or omission to which the injury is attributable. The judge's formulation cannot, in our judgment, be faulted.

  • Surtees v Kingston-upon-Thames Borough Council; Surtees v Hughes and Another
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 26 Marzo 1991

    I further agree with Stocker L.J. that the court should be wary in its approach to holding parents in breach of a duty of care owed to their children. It is accepted that the duty owed by Mr and Mrs Hughes, as foster parents, to the plaintiff was exactly the same as that owed by the ordinary parent to his or her own children. There are very real public policy considerations to be taken into account if the conflicts inherent in legal proceedings are to be brought into family relationships.

  • Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust
    • Supreme Court
    • 10 Octubre 2018

    The particular role performed by the individual concerned will be likely to have an important bearing on the question of breach of the duty of care. As Mustill LJ explained in Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority [1987] QB 730, 750–751, the legitimate expectation of the patient is that he will receive from each person concerned with his care a degree of skill appropriate to the task which he or she undertakes.

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Legislation
  • Serious Crime Act 2015
    • UK Non-devolved
    • 1 de Enero de 2015
    ... ... started within a reasonable time (and this duty applies whether or not an application to ... 97C Breach of compliance order ... (1) This section ... (ii) a teacher, or ... (iii) a social care worker in Wales; ... (b) a person "discovers" ... ...
  • Insurance Act 2015
    • UK Non-devolved
    • 1 de Enero de 2015
    ... ... be if the contract were entered into;“the duty of fair presentation” means the duty imposed by ... 8: Remedies for breach ... (1) The insurer has a remedy against the ... the duty of fair presentation, or(b) did not care whether or not it was in breach of that duty ... ...
  • Consumer Rights Act 2015
    • UK Non-devolved
    • 1 de Enero de 2015
  • Coronavirus Act 2020
    • UK Non-devolved
    • 1 de Enero de 2020
    ... ... registration of nurses and other health and care professionals: Schedule 1 contains temporary ... , arising out of or in connection with a breach of a duty of care owed in connection with the ... ...
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Books & Journal Articles
  • Homicide law enacted.
    • No. 2007, December - September 2007
    • Financial Management (UK)
    • Brief article
    ... ... as a corporate body if there is a gross breach of duty of care, arising from a product or ... ...
  • Firms pressured to come clean: shareholders are mobilising on climate-change issues.
    • No. 2004, June 2004
    • Financial Management (UK)
    • Howarth, Anita
    • Corporate Social Responsibility
    ... ... disclosure and risk management should be a breach of duty of care. He pointed out that it was ... ...
  • Criminal Law Legislation Update
    • No. 77-3, June 2013
    • Journal of Criminal Law, The
    ... ... of controlled waste without registering; breach of duty of care; and breach of an abatement ... ...
  • “But we had obtained professional/legal advice!”. The disclosure conundrum and directors' dilemma
    • No. 20-3, July 2013
    • Journal of Financial Crime
    • 312-323
    Purpose: In recent enforcement actions by several capital market regulators in some common law jurisdictions, the issue of directors' reliance on legal advice in relation to compliance with their s...
    ... ... ficient protectionagainst allegation of breach of directors’ duties and the disclosure ... have rightly upheld the standard of care expected to be exercised by directors or are ... activities ondirectors’ oversight duty.Keywords Duty of care, Skilland diligence, ... ...
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Law Firm Commentaries
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