Business Law - Professional Negligence Claims - Essay Example

Case Study and Section # of Part (a) When a guest comes to your house it is obligatory to greetand treat them pleasantly with love and care. Try to protect them from any unfortunate incident which might result in causing harm to the guest. These all gestures are not mentioned in any contract between the two, the host is obligatory to act in that way. At times things are not in black and white but they come out of morality (Stanton, 2006). Any kind of negligence which harms the guest is a civil misdeed and is called a trot and as nobody harms their guest with the intension of doing it so it is called unintentional trot. Negligence is when anyone doesn’t take the necessary measures to avoid any mishap which any sensible person on the other hand would take and such irresponsible actions can lead to negligence lawsuit. Same has happened in the given case study i.e. Sunny Cruises plc v Yogesh. In this scenario Yogesh has every right to obtain legal services to get compensation against sunny Cruises. As Sunny Cruises invited Yogesh for a five day visit and they were obligated to give good services to him as it was their duty of care (Bussani & Palmer, 2003). Almost a similar case happened back in 1932 which were decided by the House of Lords. The facts of this care were that a customer named Mrs. Donoghue went into a cafe in Scotland with her friend and ordered a ginger-beer, while drinking she saw a snail’s body in the bear. Due to it she suffered severe gastroenteritis. She sued the beer company for this incident. Although the beer company said that they were not under any contract of sale with Mrs. Donoghue and were not liable for this incident as it was not even intentional but the House of Lords decided in favor of Mrs. Donoghue and she got the complete compensation. (Patten, 2012) The above mentioned case defines that negligence is a legal concept and one can be proven guilty for being negligent. Negligent acts are unintentional but are cause of reckless behavior. As in our case when Sunny Cruises invited Yogesh they were responsible for his well-being and not just his but also the other people who were present on the cruise as they can be used as witnesses. Negligence law suit has four main components and we can put Yogesh’s situation in those four criteria to prove that he is most likely to get the compensation for the physical and financial harm being caused by Sunny Cruise: The first one is that the defender had a duty toward the plaintiff. As mentioned in the case study that Sunny Cruise invited Yogesh then yes it was their duty to provide proper accommodation facilities with hygienic food and atmosphere in contrast to this Yogesh was provided with zero facilities on every ground which means lack of duty of care (Salter, 2013). If this conduct must be compared with the ordinary everyday standards of humanity, what would a reasonably cautious and vigilant person do? That person would take responsibility to ensure good care of the guest and would not have a breach of that duty of care. So in Sunny’s case they should have avoided acts which can be foreseen as to harm others. The second one is defenders breach of duty, here is when there is sufficient to prove to the jury keeping in mind the actions of a lawful and responsible in the same situation. Did the defender act like one? Should he acted and why didn’t? For example If a teacher takes his students to a boating trip he is responsible for his students safety and should take all necessary safety measures but he fails to provide them with life jackets and one student fells off the boat and get drowned now who is responsible for this loss? A court would likely to say that this accident could have been avoided “but for” the teacher’s failure to provide a life jacket although it wouldn’t be teacher’s intention to drown that child but his negligence and lack of duty of care caused this mishap. Therefore this negligence was cause-in-fact of the incident. The third component is causation which means to prove that the actions of the defender were the causes of harm caused. A “but for” causation test can be used. Looking into Sunny Cruises v Yogesh case the causes of harm are unhygienic food which caused illness, having faulty equipment in exercise area which caused physical injury and when this due to this tiresome and painful experience Yogesh couldn’t join his work and faced loss of earnings too. If the ship was efficiently managed these incidents could have been avoided but for the negligence from Sunny Cruise plc side Yogesh and other passengers had to face problems. The last one is damages and in Yogesh’s case they were both physical and financial. So he is entitled to the compensation to the past and present sufferings, physical impairment, and medical care and past the loss of earnings and earning capabilities. Under the law of negligence there are a number of liabilities, some are held to a higher rate than ordinary public. For Example people can sue a manufacture for a faulty object which was not up to the mark. Such negligence is catered on the part of manufactures under the law called product liability. In the same way people who own a place are responsible for the maintenance of that property so that no one entering or using it would get harm in any way possible. This comes under the law called occupier’s liability. So the owners have to be very vigilant to ensure that no one gets hurt in his jurisdiction. According to the above mentioned liabilities Sunny Cruise plc are liable to the incidents happened on their cruise ship. People are expected to sue the opposite party within a specific time for damages according to the law called statute of limitations this law defines the duration with the plaintiff must sue for damages and usually this duration is 3 years. Expiry of that period would lead to no use putting allegations (Twomey & Jennings, 2013). Now, as there was no written contract between the two parties so there was no point of proposition of law or exclusion clause that would help Sunny Cruise plc to avoid any kind of penalty. As happened in Spurling v Bradshaw case where the defendant was signing an invoice while dropping his product in a warehouse with exclusion clause which demonstrated that the storage company was not liable for the damage in their storage so the claimant (storage company) brought an action to receive his payment and the defendant couldn’t claim compensation for the damage to the orange juice. (Spurling v Bradshaw [1956] 1 WLR 461). Part (b) Taking advices from specialized professionals is very common now days which is increasing their demand for their services and higher standards of advices but on the other hand negligence claims against these professionals are also rising. Professionals like accountants and financial advisors are relied upon before taking any complex financial decision. A specialized professional is obligated to perform his duty while being vigilant and careful with the right set of skills. The skills and expertise an ordinary skilled professional of the same field would have. The case of HEADLEY BYRNE & CO. LTD v HELLER AND PARTNERS LTD[2](HOUSE OF LORDS, 1964) can elaborate the situation which is a case of negligence by a bank. Headley, the claimant, gave a huge amount of advertising to Easy power and was supposed to be liable if Easy power doesn’t pay. Just to be on a safer side Headley asked Easy Power’s bank to know if Easy power was in position to pay back. Bank, the respondent, gave a positive report about their financial position, which was lately considered wrong while Headley spend more money on Easy Power and eventually Headley faced a huge loss. A negligent report caused the bank had to pay to recover the loss of Headley Bryne (Twomey & Jennings, 2013). Although the professionals can be charged for loss caused due to their advice but professional is only accountable for the failures that happened because of his negligence. In other words, if the loss had occurred not because of professional’s advice but because of some other market factors he will not be charged for the loss (Pearson Education, 2013). References Bussani, M., & Palmer, V. V. (Eds.). (2003). Pure economic loss in Europe. Cambridge University Press. Patten, K. (2012). Personal injury: Snail trail. New Law Journal (LexisNexis) 162 (7513): 643–645. Pearson Education (2013). Negligence and Unintentional Torts. Retrieved on July 7, 2014 from http://wps.prenhall.com/ca_ph_blair_law_1/2/538/137983.cw/index.html Salter, K. (2013). Professional negligence claims - the breach must cause the loss. Retrieved on July 7, 2014 from http://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/news-and-events/blogs/dispute-resolution-law-blog/professional-negligence-claims-the-breach-must-cause-the-loss Stanton, K. (2006) Professional negligence: duty of care methodology in the twenty first century. Journal of Professional Negligence 22(3) 134 – 140 Twomey, D., & Jennings, M. (2013). Andersons Business Law and the Legal Environment, Comprehensive Volume. Cengage Learning. Read More