Negligence and the Home Office v Dorset Yacht PDF

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Summary

This document describes how the landmark Home Office v. Dorset Yacht case expanded the scope of duty of care, in regard to third parties.
The case has been broken down and explained where useful, and is perfect for expanding knowledge for essay questions, or just general revision....

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Negligence and the Home Office v. Dorset Yacht Co Ltd

The tort of negligence arises from the case Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932], from which the four requirements for an act of negligence were established. These four requirements are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The defendant owed a duty of care The defendant was in breach of that duty The breach caused damage, and The damage was not too remote

This case, yet again, expands the scope of the legal principle duty of care. What is a Legal Duty of Care? The legal test that seeks out to impose a duty of care on a defendant is the Caparo Test, which comes from the case Caparo Industries PIC v. Dickman [1990]. This test requires that: 1. The harm caused was reasonably foreseeable 2. That there was a relationship of proximity 3. That it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care The test used may vary on the facts of the case. The case Home Office v. Dorset Yacht Co Ltd is an important one for establishing how wide the duty of care element can branch out, and the extent of foreseeability in certain contexts.

Facts of the Case Part of borstal officers’ job is to supervise juvenile/young offenders who were working on Brown Sea Island, just off of Poole Harbour, however the officers on duty left the boys unsupervised. These unsupervised young offenders then began to act up and cause trouble, such as stealing a boat and crashing it into a yacht. The owner of the yacht (the claimant) then brought upon legal action against the borstal officers.

Judgement It was found that the employers of the borstal officers (the Home Office) were vicariously liable for the officers and owed a legal duty of care, because they were in a position to control the third party who caused the damage. This was considered as foreseeable damage by the court, as juvenile offenders were involved.

Why was this Judgement Important? This judgement was important because it began the discourse on expanding the scope of a duty of care in negligence, by widening the circumstances the court is set to consider when establishing when a duty of care is owed in certain unusual contexts. In the judgement, Lord Atkins neighbour principle was alluded to. Lord Reid went forward to say: “the taking by trainees of a nearby yacht and the causing of damage to the other yacht … ought to have been foreseen by the borstal officers as likely to occur if they failed to exercise proper control or supervision … the officers prima facie owed a duty of care to the respondents”. These findings were particularly important to the test for a duty of care because it discussed the involvement of third parties. It also established the importance of context surrounding the third party, and how this may enhance foreseeability....