Lecture notes - Weeks 2-5, 9-13 PDF

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Week 2 Seminar Notes - Week 3 Seminar Notes - Week 4 Seminar Notes - Week 5 Lecture Notes - Week 9 Seminar Notes - Week 10 Seminar Notes - Week 11 Seminar Notes - Week 12 Seminar Notes - Week 13 Seminar Notes merged files: week-2-torts-seminar-7.doc - Torts seminar week 3.docx - week 4 torts seminar...

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Week 10 torts seminar 5D General principles (1) A determination that negligence caused particular harm comprises the following elements: (a) that the negligence was a necessary condition of the occurrence of the harm ( "factual causation"), and (b) that it is appropriate for the scope of the negligent person’s liability to extend to the harm so caused ( "scope of liability" also legal causation).

(a) common law –“but for” test a.k.a causa sine qua non, or proximate cause test (b) remoteness – Wagon Mound – reasonable foreseeability of the kind of damage suffered by P Normative considerations  Novus actus interveniens  Eggshell skull rule 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Duty Breach Damage Causation Defences Damages

THE WAGON MOUND (NO.1) NADER V URBAN TRANSIT AUTHORITY OF NSW (1985)  Facts: o 10 year old boy struck his head on a bus stop pole while alighting from a slowly moving bus.  Held: o KAVANAGH V AKHTAR  Facts: o P was Indian Muslim woman o Injury caused her significant discomfort with caring and brushing of her long hair. o Contrary to her husband’s reactions were extreme o She believed, wrongly, that her husband would not object o Husband reacted extremely o She was subject to insult, loss of assistance in the household, his refusal of sexual relations with her; and her husband sleeping with other women o It effectively caused a break up of the marriage o P suffered a serious psychiatric illness as a consequence  Held: o NSW Court of Appeal held that the P was entitled to recover damages for the psychiatric illness. o Mason P said: “The principle that a tortfeasor takes the victim as he or she is found is not absolute and unqualified. However, I see no

reason why the appellant should not take the respondent in the family and cultural setting that she lived. Equality before the law puts a heavy onus on the person who would argue that the “unusual” reaction of an injured P should be disregarded because a minority religious or cultural situation may not have been foreseeable....