Study manual

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Elements constituting Modern Tort of Negligence 
Modern Tort of Negligence is traced back to the House of Lord's 
decision delivered in 1932. The statement of Lord Atkin in 
DONOGHUE V. STEVENSON (1932) AC 562, 580 has been particularly 
singled out as containing all the essential elements 
constituting the modern Tort of Negligence. Lord Atkin was of 
the considered view that: 
"There must be, and is, some general conception of relations 
giving rise to duty of care, of which the particular cases found 
in the books are but instances... (Attorneys - Inn-keepers - 
common calling) The rule that you are to love your neighbour 
becomes in law you must not injure your neighbour; and the 
lawyer's question, who is my neighbour? receives a restricted 
reply. 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 which are called in question". 
Lord Atkin's dictum gives us the following pointers to our 
understanding of the modern Tort of Negligence: 

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(a) In law, there must be some general conceptions which give 
rise a duty of care to govern relationships amongst members of a 
society pursuing their respective activities which may be 
conflicting. 
(b) In law books there are already (as of 1932) such duty 
relationships mentioned in para (a), for instance: (i) 
Attorneys' duty towards their clients; and, (ii) Innkeepers' 
duty towards their customers. These were duties of those 
professing what the common law regarded as professions of 
"Common Calling". The Common Law placed on these professionals a 
duty of care well before 1932. 
(c) Duty of care is owed not towards everybody in the world but 
is restricted to "persons who are so closely and directly 
affected by acts of a defendant that this defendant ought 
reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected 
when he is doing an act or when he omits to an act". In the case 
before Lord Atkin, the "neighbour" to the manufacturer of 
ginger beer was not the whole world, but was restricted to 
retailer of the beer, distributor of this beer and whoever will 
drink the ginger beer. These were the persons the manufacturer 
of beer had to have in contemplastion when preparing the beer. 
Negligence as a Tort occurs when the Defendant: 
(1) Owes a DUTY OF CARE to the plaintiff, 
(2) Breaks that DUTY OF CARE by failing to come up to the 
standard of care required by law, and 
(3) thereby causes some legally recognised damage to the 

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plaintiff. The second (2) and third (3) aspects produce most of 
the disputes in courts but it is the first (1) that gives rise 
to the most difficult conceptual problems and it is the heart of 
an understanding of this tort and its place in the law: [ROGERS, 
W. V. H., Law of Tort, Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1989, page 
40.] 
Three elements to the tort of Negligence can be deduced from 
Lord Atkin's formulation: 
(i) A duty of care owed by the Defendant to the Plaintiff. 
(ii) Breach of that duty by the Defendant. 
(iii) 
Damage to the Plaintiff resulting from the breach. 

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