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APPENDIX II:PRE-1932 NEGLIGENCE CASES
EXTRACTED FROM:
A Selection of Cases Illustrative of the English
Law of Tort, by Courtney Stanhope Kenny, Fifth Edition,
Cambridge University Press, 1928
:-
APPENDIX I:
A Selection of Cases Illustrative of the English Law of Tort, by Courtney
Stanhope Kenny, Fifth Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1928:-
Old Cases Law Suggesting The Existence of Elements of
Negligence Well before 1932 Decision of the House of Lords:
[1] Blyth V. Topham Court of King's Bench. 1607. Cro. Jac. 158.
To cause damage to any one by your carelessness is no Tort,
unless you were under some legal duty to him of being
careful.
This case surveys the DUTY OF CARE. In modern day
Negligence, DUTY OF CARE is a very important element of the
tort.
ACTION upon the case, for that Topham digged (dug) (dug) a pit
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in a common
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, by occasion whereof Blyth's mare (being straying
there) fell into the said pit and perished. The defendant
pleaded not guilty; and a verdict was found for him.
The
plaintiff, to save costs, moved in arrest of judgment;
saying the declaration was not good. For the mare was straying,
and the plaintiff shews not any right why his mare should be in
the said common. The digging of the
pit was lawful as against
him; and, although his mare fell therein, he hath not any
remedy. It is
damnum absque injuria; an action lies not by him.
And of that opinion was the whole court.
[EDITOR'S NOTE. Similar to this is the American case of
Bush v.
Brainard (1 Cowen, 78). Brainard had
put some buckets of maple
syrup into an open shed, on his own unenclosed woodland. The
plaintiff's cow came in the night and drank so much of the syrup
that it caused her death. It was held by all the court that,
although the defendant was guilty of gross carelessness, as the
plaintiff had no right to permit his
cow to go at large on the
defendant's land, he could not recover for the loss of her.
Negligence has been defined as "The omission to do something
which a reasonable man, guided by those considerations which
ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do; or
the doing of something which such a man would not do."
"`Negligence' in not doing things implies that it was reasonably
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.
Thirty-six
feet distant from the highway; according to 1 Rolle's Abr. 88.
