(a) The neighbour principle is the test for establishing whether a duty of care exists in relation to the tort of negligence. It was initially set out in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), the snail in the beer bottle case. In putting forward the test to establish a duty of care Lord Atkin stated that:
‘You must take reasonable care to avoid acts and omissions which you could reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law is my neighbour? ... any person 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 and omissions which are called
in question.’
It can be seen that this neighbour test for deciding the existence of a duty of care is an objective, rather than a subjective one. It is not a matter of what the respondent actually considered, but what they ought to have considered. Nor does the test require the contemplation of the resultant effect on the specific individual injured, but merely requires that identity of a class of individuals who might be injured as a consequence of the respondent’s lack of care. |
