Duty Of Care Essay

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DUTY OF CARE
Duty of care is a requirement that a person act toward others and the public with watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence that a reasonable person in the circumstances would. In other words, a person is made liable for negligence only if he fails to perform his legal duty. As per Winfield and Jolowicz, the term ‘duty’ is not limited to the tort of negligence but can also be found in other tort as there is no legal duty to perform assault, battery, nuisance, defamation, etc. But in case of negligence, the duty of care is one of the most important condition on breach of which, the liability for negligence arises.
Parcq L.J. in 1946 said the following regarding ‘duty’:
“it is not true to say that whenever a person finds himself …show more content…

728 that the duty of care has to be approached in two stage test. Lord Wilberforce expounded two-tier approach.
1. Whether there is sufficient proximity between the parties to establish prima facie duty.
2. If it is so, whether the judge has any policy considerations to prevent from imposition of such duty.
In this case, the local authority failed to notice that the building work which resulted in shallow foundations.
The test laid down by Lord Wilberforce in Anns v Merton London Borough paved way for new areas of law such as pure economic loss and nervous shock. The Anns test had been criticized to broaden the scope of duty of care. The test was subsequently overruled in Murphy v Brentwood District Council [1991] 1 AC 398.
In Murphy v Brentwood District Council, the local authority failed to inspect that the foundations of the building were unstable and the claimant was not able to raise money for repairs. The claimant had to sell the house and therefore, sought to recover the money from the council. The damages were declined on the grounds of economic loss.
The leading case which is applicable with regard to duty of care is the decision of House of Lords in Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman. The facts of the case

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