On today’s Learning The Law series, we would be taking a look at the Neighborhood principle; who is regarded as your neighbour in law. We would be analyzing the case of Donoghue v Stevenson which is the locus classicus for this famous legal principle and upon which the foundation of the modern tort of negligence was built upon.
Donoghue v Stevenson is a famous case in English law which was instrumental in shaping the law of tort and In particular, the doctrine of negligence. This case established the ‘neighbour principle’ which postulates that to establish a duty of care, a defendant owes a duty of care to their neighbours. Your neighbour, therefore, is someone so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought reasonably to have them in your contemplation as being affected when you are directing your mind to the acts.
The sub-principles propagated by this case are that negligence is distinct and separate in tort; secondly, there does not need to be a contractual relationship between parties before a duty of care will be established; thirdly, manufacturers owe a duty of care to the consumers who they intend to use or consume their products.
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Here is the summary of the case:
On August 26 1928, Mrs Donoghue’s friend bought her a ginger beer from a Café in Paisley, a small town in Scotland. She consumed about half of the bottle when she noticed an unfamiliar substance inside the beer and decided to pour out the remainder of the contents into a cup. When the remainder of the ginger beer was poured into a cup, a decomposed snail was seen floating inside.
Mrs Stevenson, having consumed a substantial amount of the beer, fell sick as a result of it. She decided to sue for damages but she was not able to make a claim through breach of warranty of contract since she was not a party to any contract.
She, therefore, commenced an action against Stevenson, the manufacturer of the ginger beer. The case made its way up to the House of Lords.
The issue for determination before the House of Lords was if Mr Stevenson, the manufacturer of the ginger beer owed Mrs Donoghue a duty of care in the absence of contractual relations contrary to established case law.
The House of Lords held that Mr Stevenson, the manufacturer, owed a duty of care to Mrs Donogue, a duty which was breached because it was reasonably foreseeable that failure to ensure the product’s safety would pose a health risk to consumers. There was also a sufficiently proximate relationship between consumers and product manufacturers.
Therefore, the consumers of products are neighbours to the manufacturers and the manufacturers must exercise a duty of care to them to make sure that they do not get harm from using or consuming the products.
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562