Analysis of Alain's Kesponsible - Essay Example

Assessment Task on Tort of Negligence Following are the questions which need to be considered in applying the tort of negligence Whether Alain isresponsible for Mrs. Todd’s injuries? 2. Whether Alain is responsible for Brian injuries? 3. Whether Alain is responsible for Mr. Todd’s injury amounting to death? Issue 1 Whether Alain is responsible for Mrs. Todd’s injuries Alain was a supervisor employed with Fresco Supermarkets. While supervising his duties, he approached Mrs. Todd, who hereinafter will be referred to as Plaintiff, while Alain will be referred to as the Defendant. During the time he was helping out Mrs. Todd, he accidently hung the shopping bags on to the accelerator bar of the scooter, which in turn sped off the scooter with immediate affect, causing injuries to Mrs. Todd. In order to establish this as the case of negligence, it is pertinent to pass the rules laid down which help us to determine the tort of negligence. Rule 1: Duty of care by the defendant to the plaintiff Alain, while in the course of the act of helping Mrs Todd balance the shopping, owed a duty of care to the Plaintiff during the course of his employment. He approached the plaintiff to help her balance the shopping, and therefore was under the obligation of taking care while performing the act. However, he failed to take enough care and made the mistake of hanging the heavy shopping bags on the accelerator bar, which led to the scooter speeding off to disaster. Applying the test of remoteness to this case, we observe that Mrs. Todd was directly in the path of any act or omission of Alain. (1856) She was the closest neighbour to Alain and was under the radar of any negligent act of Alain. To make matters worse, she was still on her scooter when Alain was balancing the shopping bags. (1942) Alain did not act prudently and carefully while balancing the shopping bags. Any reasonable man would have known that hanging the bags on to the accelerator would amount to a disastrous accident, especially when Mrs Todd was still on the scooter. The case of first came out with the concept of duty of care. (1990, 1932) Lord Atkins, the judge presiding over the case, had the following comment to make which explains the concept of duty of care in the tort of negligence: “There must be, and is, some general conception of relations giving rise to a duty of care, of which the particular cases found in the books are but instances. The rule that you are to love your neighbour becomes in law you must not injure your neighbour; and the lawyers question: Who is my neighbour? You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law, is my neighbour? The answer seems to be - persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions that are called in question. A manufacturer of products, which he sells in such a form as to show that he intends them to reach the ultimate consumer in the form in which they left him with no reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, and with knowledge that the absence of reasonable care in the preparation or putting up of products will result in an injury to the consumers life or property, owes a duty to the consumer to take that reasonable care.” Mrs Todd was the neighbour of Alain, who therefore owe d a duty of care to her. (1920) His actions were directly responsible for any harm or injury occurring to Mrs Todd. The plaintiff was closely affected by the acts of the defendant, and as a reasonable man he should have taken enough care to avoid any harm or injury to the plaintiff, which unfortunately he failed to perform. (1948) Under the tort of negligence, it is immaterial whether the defendant had the intention of not taking care, or vice versa. The very fact that there was a negligent act on behalf of the defendant is enough to prove a case of negligence. Therefore, it is safe to assume that Alain owed a duty of care to Mrs. Todd in this present case. Rule 2: Breach of that duty by the defendant In order to prove that there is a breach of the duty owed to the defendant, it is imperative to understand the facts of the case and point out where such a breach occurred. Alain, under the duty of performing his act, erred on the part when he accidently hung the shopping bags on to the accelerator handle, which was the prime cause for the sudden speeding of the scooter, which unfortunately ended in shambles. Had Alain been more careful in his act of balancing the shopping bags, then he would not have made the mistake which ultimately led to a serious accident. Therefore, it is safe to claim that there was a breach of duty by Alain, the act where he placed the shopping bags on to the accelerator bar. (1962) Rule 3: Harm in fact suffered by the plaintiff Looking at the facts of the case, it is quite obvious that the plaintiff suffered heavy damage and injuries due to the breach of the duty by the Defendant. Mrs Todd’s scooter sped off and ploughed into the tobacco stall. Mrs Todd was flung from her scooter and ended up under a pile of cigarette cartons with just her legs poking out. She fractured her pelvis from the blow of the fall and also sustained heavy head injuries. All this culminates to the fact that there was indeed harm suffered by the plaintiff. Rule 4: Defendants breach being a cause of that harm Let us look back at the events in anti chronological order. Mrs Todd suffered with heavy injuries which amounted to a fractured pelvis and further head injuries. This happened due to the accident of her scooter on which she was riding into a tobacco stall. The cause of the accident can only be blamed on the sudden speeding of the scooter, where the plaintiff had no control on the vehicle whatsoever. This was due to the accelerator bar being pressurised with immediate effect. The cause of this action was the hanging of the shopping bags on to the accelerator bar, which made the scooter zoom in an uncontrollable state. And this can be traced down to the act of the defendant, where he was negligent in his act by doing something he should not have done place, which was the prime reason for the crash. Understanding the perspective of causation the tort of negligence states that for any injury to be held as a direct cause of the negligent act, it is pertinent to prove that such an injury was directly caused by the act of the defendant, and the injury caused is only and only due to the negligent act of the defendant. (1943) Interpreting the facts with the law, we observe that the injury caused to the plaintiff was a direct cause and effect of the negligent of the defendant. There was no other way that the plaintiff could have sustained such injuries to her body, if not for the sudden speeding of the scooter, which was in fact caused by the negligent act of the plaintiff by hanging the shopping bags on to the accelerator bar. Therefore, in light of the facts and the law, the defendant is liable for the injuries suffered by the plaintiff. He was negligent in his act of performance of the task of balancing the shopping bags, and therefore should be held liable for ultimately causing injuries to the plaintiff. Issue 2 Whether Alain is responsible for Brian injuries? Brian was the assistant of the tobacco stall and suffered injuries due to the debris collapsing on his body. He fractured his wrist and thus is likely to be off work for three months. Let us analyze the injury of Brian to the act of the plaintiff. In the case of (1990), we observe the three stage test to establish duty of care: “The three-stage Caparo test for establishing a duty of care requires (i) foreseeability of damage, (ii) a relationship characterised by the law as one of proximity or neighbourhood and (iii) that the situation should be one in which the court considers it would be fair, just and reasonable that the law should impose a duty of given scope on one party for the benefit of the other.” Applying the rule of duty of care, we observe that Brian was not directly related to Alain in the first place, and therefore it is difficult to establish whether he owed a duty of care to Brian. There was no relationship of proximity between these two. (2001, 1951) From the facts of the case, it is shown that the closest neighbour to Alain was Mrs Todd, and therefore she was the one who was directly in the path of any mishap happening on Alain’s side. Applying the test of foresee ability we perceive that under a reasonable man’s act of understanding, he could not have foreseen that a person standing some metres away from the place of the act would get injured due to the speeding of the scooter and it getting smashed into the tobacco stall. (1921) This thought is a very remote thought, and could not have been foreseen by a reasonable man under reasonable circumstances. The injury caused to Brian could not have been foreseen by a prudent man acting reasonably. It would be asking too much from Alain to have foreseen that something like this could also happen. Brian was not directly associated to the act of Alain, and therefore Alain was under no obligation to owe him a duty of care. It is too far fetched to claim that Alain was responsible for the injuries of Brian, since he could not have foreseen such a situation in the first place. Brian’s injury was not a proximate cause of the act of Alain. The injury to Brian arose from a cause which happened due to the negligent act of Alain. It was a chain reaction which led to the injury to Brian from the accident of Mrs Todd. This chain reaction arises from a different accident, and was not directly associated with the act of Alain. Therefore, to claim that Alain is responsible for the injuries to Brian would amount to a far reaching conclusion. (1929) From the facts and the arguments advanced, it can be established that Alain is not responsible for Brian’s injuries. Issue 3 Whether Alain is responsible for Mr. Todd’s injury amounting to death? Mr Todd, who was there when his wife suffered the blow to her body, believed her to be dead and knocked himself unconscious. Later on, he developed a blot clot on the brain and died. We have to determine whether the act of Alain is responsible for the injury and subsequent death of Mr. Todd. Applying the rule of duty of care, it looks that Mr Todd was not in close proximity to Alain in order for him to have owed duty of care to Mr. Todd. Mr. Todd accidently happened to be at the place of the crash, and mistakenly believed his wife to be dead. This mistake was the sole reason for him going unconscious and subsequently dying to the injuries sustained. In the case of (1961), a large quantity of oil was spilt into Sydney Harbour from the Wagon Mound and it drifted under the wharf where the claimants were oxyacetylene welding. The resulting fire caused extensive damage to the wharf and to vessels moored nearby. The judge held the following: “A man must be considered to be responsible for the probable consequences of his act. To demand more of him is too harsh a rule, to demand less is to ignore that civilised order requires the observance of a minimum standard of behaviour. A man should be responsible for the necessary or probable consequences of his act (or any other similar description of them), "not because they are natural or necessary or probable, but because, since they have this quality, it is judged by the standard of the reasonable man that he ought to have foreseen them.” Applying the test in the above case, we understand that the injury caused to Mr Todd is too remote and unforeseeable for an average man with a reasonable way of perceiving situations. It could not have been foreseen that Mr Todd, the husband of Mrs Todd, would have been there on that spot at that particular moment when the accident took place. (1916) Furthermore, he believes his wife to be dead, which was a false belief as she was very much alive. It was his own conscious and emotions which made him believe so. He should have acted as a prudent man and should have first checked whether his wife is alive or not. He was not able to control his emotions and his conscious self, thus collapsed on the ground and knocked himself out. Reference List 1856. Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks Company. 1942. Yorkshire Dale Steamship Co v Minister of War Transport. 1947. United States v. Carroll Towing Co.  1932. Donoghue v. Stevenson. UKHL Williams, G. 1951. The Aims of the Law of Tort.  1990. Caparo Industries Plc. v Dickman. 1948 Summers v. Tice. 1920. Anderson v. Minneapolis, St: P. & S. St. R.R. Co. 1961. The Wagon Mound  1962. Smith v Leech Brain & Co Ltd. Torts of Negligence [Online] Available at: http://expertlaw.com [Accessed 1 December, 2010] 1943. Bourhill v Young. 1921. Re Polemis & Furniss, Withy & Co Ltd  1929. Mullen v A.G. Barr & Co 1916. MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. Read More