Legal Causation - created from Mind Map

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Remoteness

Break of COC

Re Polemis (old test): D liable for all consequence of his negligence

Wagon Mound (No 1) [1961] - property damage case

FACT: welders was repairing boat - sparks landed on oil explosion

Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963] - personal injury case

HELD: Oil damage was foreseeable but the ignite of fire (kind of harm) was unforeseeable - cannot claim

RATIO: Kind of harm must be foreseeable, if it was unforeseeable, no matter how negligent you are, you cannot claim

Exception: egg shell rule - D must take V as he finds him

Smith v Leece Brain & Co Ltd

FACT: burnt on lip - pre-cancerous skin - died

Lagden v O'Connor

HELD: foreseeability of the extent of the injury is irrelevant - no matter how great it is, claimant can claim

If C ends up suffering much worse financial loss because they are in a poor financial position, then D has to take his V as he finds him and pay the full extent of the loss even though the other person would have suffered lesser loss.

FACT: hole on the ground - paraffin lamp - explosion

Doughty v Turner Manufacturing Co

HELD: C suffer burn was reasonably foreseeable - the exact way in which the burn happened was unforeseeable is irrelevant

more generous approach

FACT: asbestos lid - explosion

Tremain v Pike [1969]

HELD: eruption of boiling liquid is different from splashing of liquid - cannot claim

stricter approach

FACT: exposure to rat urine - Weil's disease

Page v Smith [ 1996]

HELD: bitten by rate was foreseeable but Weil's disease was unforeseeable

restrictive approach

FACT: road accident - exhausetd after 3 hours - died

Jolley v Sutton London Borough Council [2000]

HELD: it was enough to show that some personal injury was foreseeable, no matter physical or psychiatric injury

generous approach

FACT: rotten boat - toppled off carjack - paraplegic

HELD: if personal injury is foreseeable , the exact way of how it happened is irrelevant even though it was unforeseeable

generous (follow Page) + return of Hughes v Lord Advocate

Intervening Act

Deliberate act of 3rd party: crime

Negligent act of 3rd party: road accident

Negligent act of 3rd party: medical treatment

Deliberate act of claimant: suicide

Negligent act of claimant

Lamb v Camden London Borough Council [1981]

FACT: House flooded - squatters moved in - criminal damage

HELD: there was break in COC - Oliver LJ: Reasonable foreseeability; Lord Denning: question of policy; Watkins LJ: matter of instinct

Rouse v Squires [1973]

Knightley v John [1982]

FACT: D1 jack-knifed lorry & blocked motrway - car collided - Mr Rouse was helping - D2 drove negligently and killed him

HELD: no break in COC - D2 paid 1/4 D1 paid 3/4

FACT: against traffic flow - sued Mr John, police in charge and driver

HELD: there was break in COC - the whole sequence was a natural and probable consequence and reasonably foreseeable by the police in charge

Mahoney v Kruschick

D should have known that potentially he is going to cause C seek for medical help hence he has to take the risk that thing might go wrong - no break in COC

applied in Webb v Barclays Bank [2001]

FACT: injured polio-infected leg - doctor hasn't explore other options but amputated C's leg

HELD: no break in COC

practitioner text in Clerk and Lindsell, there must be GROSS negligence

Reeves v Metropolitan Commissioner [2000]

Corr v IBC [2008]

FACT: prisoner - suicide tendencies

HELD: police has duty of care - no break in COC

FACT: almost decapitated - physical & psychiatric harm - suicide

HELD: The depression was a result of the accident - not Corr's voluntary act - no break in COC

Ratio: C's voluntary act - break in COC; as a result of depression follow from D's negligence - no break in COC

McKew v Holland & Hannen & Cubitts (Scotland) Ltd [1969]

FACT: Leg gave away when descending the stirs - jump to the bottom to land on the feet but greater injury

HELD: acted unreasonably by putting himself in a vulnerable position - break in COC