Duty to Rescue in UK Law

Leading Cases
  • Videan v British Transport Commission
    • Court of Appeal
    • 28 May 1963

    It seems to me that, if a person by his fault creates a situation of peril, he must answer for it to any person who attempts to rescue the person who is in danger. The rescuer may act instinctively out of humanity or deliberately out of courage. But whichever it is, so long as it is not wanton interference, if the rescuer is killed or injured in the attempt, he can recover damages from the one whose fault has been the cause of it.

  • Stovin and Another v Norfolk County Council
    • House of Lords
    • 24 July 1996

    There are sound reasons why omissions require different treatment from positive conduct. It is another thing for the law to require that a person who is doing nothing in particular shall take steps to prevent another from suffering harm from the acts of third parties (like Mrs Wise) or natural causes.

    One must have regard to the purpose of the distinction as it is used in the law of negligence, which is to distinguish between regulating the way in which an activity may be conducted and imposing a duty to act upon a person who is not carrying on any relevant activity. To hold the defendant liable for an act, rather than an omission, it is therefore necessary to be able to say, according to common sense principles of causation, that the damage was caused by something which the defendant did.

    It will often be foreseeable that loss will result if, for example, a benefit or service is not provided. If the policy of the act is not to create a statutory liability to pay compensation, the same policy should ordinarily exclude the existence of a common law duty of care.

  • Knightley v Johns
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 27 March 1981

    In the long run the question is, as Lord Reid said in the Dorset Yacht Company case one of remoteness of damage, to be answered as has so often been stated, not by the logic of philosophers but by the common sense of plain men: compare the very recent decision of this court in Compania Financiers "Soleada" S.A. v. Hamoor Tanker Corporation Inc.

  • Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales Police
    • Supreme Court
    • 28 January 2015

    Tofaris and Steel in their article, Police Liability in negligence for failure to prevent crime: Time to Re-think, (Legal Studies Research Paper Series 39/2014, July 2014) define what they describe as the "omissions principle" in the following way: A is not under a duty to take care to prevent harm occurring to B through a source of danger not created by A unless either (i) A has assumed a responsibility to protect B from that danger, (ii) A has a special level of control over that source of the danger, or (iii) A's status creates an obligation to protect B from that danger.

  • Vellino v Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 31 July 2001

    The operation of the principle arises where the claimant's claim is founded upon his own criminal or immoral act. The facts which give rise to the claim must be inextricably linked with the criminal activity. It is not sufficient if the criminal activity merely gives occasion for tortious conduct of the Defendant.

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Legislation
  • Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021
    • Wales
    • January 01, 2021
    ... ... 4: Duty to promote awareness and provide assistance ... (1) A principal council ... (9) The authorities are—(a) a fire and rescue authority for an area in Wales;(b) a National Park authority for a ... ...
  • Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020
    • UK Non-devolved
    • January 01, 2020
    ... ... , it is likely that a moratorium for the company would result in the rescue of the company as a going concern.(2) Where it is proposed that more than ... during a moratorium.Notification of insolvency proceedings(A24) Duty of directors to notify monitor of insolvency proceedings etc(1) The ... ...
  • Deregulation Act 2015
    • UK Non-devolved
    • January 01, 2015
    ... ... 1: Health and safety at work: general duty of self-employed persons ... (1) Section 3 of the Health and Safety at ... Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004: schemes for combining fire and rescue authorities ... ...
  • The Public Contracts Regulations 2015
    • UK Non-devolved
    • January 01, 2015
    ... ... where there are no other means to ensure compliance with the duty to treat economic operators equally in accordance with regulation 18(1) ... HeadquartersHome OfficeHM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue ServicesCorporate Officer of the House of CommonsCorporate Officer of the ... ...
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Books & Journal Articles
  • Liberalism, the Duty to Rescue, and Organ Procurement
    • No. 6-3, September 2008
    • Political Studies Review
    After outlining her rights-based theory of justice in Whose Body is it Anyway? Cécile Fabre argues that as a matter of justice needy people have a right to be rescued provided that this would not i...
  • N v UK: No Duty to Rescue the Nearby Needy?
    • No. 72-5, September 2009
    • The Modern Law Review
    This article discusses the deportation of a seriously ill foreign national to her country of origin, where she would face a high risk of extreme deterioration of her health due to the inadequate me...
  • Sanctioning the Selfish: The Operation of Portugal's New ‘Bad Samaritan’ Statute1
    • No. 1-4, January 1991
    • International Review of Victimology
    In 1982, Portugal followed the precedent of most European legal systems by criminally penalizing persons who fail to provide aid or summon help for those requiring such assistance. Anglo-American l...
    ... ... bearing on traditional objections to cnminalizing failure-to-rescue. It then critically reviews general reservations about ... 76-122). The present French law on the duty-to-rescue, a prototypical European statute, traces its ... ...
  • Tort liability for a failure to render assistance in a comparative perspective
    • No. 29-6, December 2022
    • Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law
    The article looks at the problem of tort liability for a failure to render assistance and compares the legal approaches to this issue. There are no European legal systems that regulate such a duty ...
    ... ... There are no European legal systems that regulate such a duty torender assistance directly in the provisions of private law. This is ... countries) have criminal law provisions that penalize a failureto rescue another person in need of assistance. This raises the question of the ... ...
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Law Firm Commentaries
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