Facts: There was a football match at Hillsborough and the police were controlling the crowd. The game got underway before everyone had entered the stadium. With the game underway there was pressure on the police to move things along, so they opened a side gate(this was back when there was only standing room for the spectators). The issue was too many people were coming into the stadium and people were crushed: 96 died and many more injured. The question for the court was the extent to which the police owed a duty of care to the claimant, who had suffered a psychiatric illness ensuing from the horrors of what she saw happen to relatives

Held: In the HoL 2 issues were pre-eminent:

1. Could relatives other than parents or spouses bring an action for psychiatric harm?
2. Could those who witnessed coverage of the disaster on TV get damages?

⇒ The court said that a tie of love and affection could be presumed in some cases, but would have to be proved in others

• Consequently, claims by brothers, sisters, and brothers-in-law, failed, while the claim on the part of a fiancé was allowed
• However claims by more distant relatives were not totally disbarred. So, for instance, a grandmother who had brought up a grandchild since infancy might qualify upon proof of the required bond of love and affection

⇒ The court re-affirmed that perception of the incident through a medium such as television is unlikely to be sufficient to establish a duty

• You need to perceive the event through unaided senses
• Parents who watched the Hillsborough disaster unfold on TV therefore had their claims rejected

Facts: In this case, there was a construction project involving the construction of a residential building. There were allegations made that the council (who have a power of inspection) failed to take care in inspecting the building, which meant the building was not stable. Over time, the building sloped and cracks appeared in the walls etc. The claimant (leasholder) claimed for the cost of repair of each individual flat in the building.

Held: Lord Wilberforce said that "the position has now been reached that in order to establish a duty of care in a particular situation, it is not necessary to bring the facts... within those of previous situations in which a duty has been held to exist."

• In other words, he said that we do not need to look for a prior category of duty to see if a duty of care exist; we just need a test to determine whether there is a duty

⇒ Lord Wilberforce proposed a two stage test for duty:

• Firstly, it must be established that there is a sufficient relationship of proximity between the defendant and the claimant, such that it was foreseeable that the claimant could be harmed if the defendnat was careless
• Secondly, the duty that someone owes to another may be limited or negated on policy grounds

Facts: This case is about the causation of psychiatric illness. Mrs Bourhill (the claimant) was a pregnant passenger on a tram. Young was on a motorbike which he crashed and died. Mrs Bourhill did not see the accident but she hard what happened. She later returned to the scene and saw the blood on the road causing three things to happen: Firstly, she was thrown into a state of terror; second, she wrenches her back; and, third, she delivers the child stillborn. The question for the court was whether or not a duty of care was owed by Young to persons in the Mrs Bourhill's class (whatever class that may be? An onlooker perhaps?)

Held: If injury to the claimant (or her class) is not foreseeable, then no duty is owed to the claimant. So, we must ask what Young could foresee when he was on his bike riding along (note: the qyestion is one of foreseeability of harm to someone of normal mental susceptibility, and not someone overly sensitive). Lord Wright held that the claimant was completely outside the range of this collision: she merely hears a noise that upsets her, and did not see the scene of the accident until later. Therefore, no duty was owed.

Facts: A firm was responsible for auditing the accounts of the electrical equipment manufacturer, Fidelity (a company listed on the London Stock Exchange). The auditing company is very important, and can be very influential on the decision making process for a company. In fact, the Companies Act requires an annual audit of the company’s accounts and these documents will go before the AGM (Annual General Meeting) so the shareholders can determine whether or not the company is performing well or whether to re-elect directors. As it happens, the auditing firm was negligent in auditing the books of Fidelity. At one point the firm confirmed a profit of £1.3m in Fidelity, but Fidelity had in fact made a loss that year of £400,000! The audited accounts looked good to Caparo and they decided to launch a takeover bid of Fidelity and were successful. Caparo then conduct another audit of the company and find there is in fact substantial loss. Caparo claims they paid too much for the shares and suffered a financial loss and is alleged the accountants owed a duty of care to investors and potential investors, and particularly to Caparo in respect of the audit.

Held: The House of Lords held that no duty of care was owed by the auditors to those who are contemplating making a purchase of shares. The House of Lords also created the leading authority on the test for duty of care.

⇒ Lord Oliver said a duty of care may be imposed if 3 requirements are satisfied (a three-stage test):

1. The claimant must be reasonably foreseable (bearing in mind the kind of harm involved)
2. There must be a proximity of relationship between the claimant and the defendant, and
3. t must be fair, just, and reasonable in the circumstances for a duty of care to be imposed on the defendant

Facts: The claimant was a manager of a pub. She was behind the bar when a vehicle was negligetly driven though the door of the pub. Although the claimant was not physically injured she claimed she suffered from severe shock and became ill. Furthermore, she was pregnant at the time and claimed the baby was born prematurely and an 'idiot' as a result. So, the question for the court was whether or not the driver owed her a duty of care.

Held: Kennedy J held that the driver did owe her a duty of care (a view that departs from Victorian Railway Commissioners v Coultas) → Kennedy J said it would be "unreasonable" to say that the driver owed her no duty of care

Facts: This case was concerned with the foreseeability of blind persons in the City of London. Some employees of the defendant were conducting repairs in the road ith statutory authority. They left a spanner in the road and a blind person tripped on it and injured themselves. The question was whether or not a duty of care was owed to the blind people of London.

Held: The court said it was foreseeable: just because blind persons constitute only a small percentage of the population does not make them unforeseeable

Facts: The defendant left a truck on a hill with its engine on. The truck began to come down the hill, crashing into things and swinging sie to side. Mrs Hambrook had just taken her children part way to school and let them walk the rest of the way. The truck crashed near to her, but she wasn't so concered about her own safety buty worried about what might happen to her children. Her fears were justified as her daughter was struck by the truck. Mrs Hambrook allegedly suffered psychiatric shock, suffered a miscarriage and died as a result. The claim was brought by her husband. The question for the court was whether or not the truck owner owed Mrs Hambrook a duty of care

Held: Bankes LJ said the truck owner could owe her a duty of care → the “[claimant] could establish a cause of action if he could prove … that the death of his wife resulted from shock occasioned by the running away of the lorry, that the shock resulted from what Mrs Hambrook either saw or realised by her own unaided senses, and not from something which some one told her, and that the shock was due to reasonable fear of immediate personal injury either to herself or to her children”

Facts: In the late 1960s, the Home Office operated a scheme for young offenders to put them on the right track. A group of these offenders were on an island and the officers, instead of supervising them, went to bed. Seven offenders decided to escape and, instead of swimming off the island, they took a yacht. While in charge of the yacht they colledied with another yacht owned by the claimant. The offenders were unlikely to have any money to pay compensation, so an action was instead bought against the Home Office who may have had a role in creating the circumstances leading to the damage of the claimant's yacht.

Held: The court endorsed a need to have a principled approach to determining duty of care. In other words, there need to be a way of testing whether or not someone/something owed a duty of care in the particular given circumstances.

Facts: This case demonstrates the importance of the policy limb of the three-part test for duty of care. A non-seaworthy ship was classified as seaworthy by the classification society. It later sank, losing all its cargo. The owners of the cargo brought the case forward. The questins for the court was whether or not a dty was owed by the people who classified the ship as seaworthy to the owners of the cargo?

Held: It was held that no duty was owed. The reason for this was on policy ground: it was said that classification societies may not be interested in providing services in the future if a duty of care is owed here. Personally, this seems like a terrible decision.

Facts: The claimant's husband and her three children were involved in a car crash due to the defendant's negligence. The claimant was home home at the time and was informed of the accident. She drives to the hospital two hours after the crash happened. At the hospital she finds her children are cut and bruised. The scene is very distressing for her and while she is there she sees her son lapse into a coma and die

Held: The House of Lords said the defendant did owe the claimant a duty of care. The issue in this case rested on proximity and Lord Wilberforce set out the appropriate proximity limits in 'secondary victim' cases (i.e. what proximity is required between the defendant and the claimant to demonstrate there is a duty of care owed):

• Class of persons: there must be a tie of love and addection between the person the defendant injured (X) and the claimant → so a mere bystander will not be able to claim
• Proximity to accident: the claimant must be close, in time and space, to the accident. In McLoughlin v O’Brian it was held that a 2 hour drive to the hospital (i.e. the aftermath) was sufficient proximity
• Means of perception: the claimant must perceive the injury to X through sight and/or hearing. So, the claimant cannot demonstrate there is a duty of care where he/she saw the injuries to X through TV coverage, through the radio, or through what he/she is told. In other words, you must perceive the injury yourself with your own unaided senses

Facts: The claimant was driving slowly in one direction and the defendant was driving slowly on the other side of the road. The defendant crossed over the centre line and crashed into the claimant. There was damage to the claimant's car but no physical injury was actually caused to the claimant. However, the claimant had sufered from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the past and he claimed that the crash triggered the ME. As a result, the claimant said he suffered from an exhaustie state and could no longer work (i.e. there was consequential financial loss too)

Held: The court found in favour of the claimant (a duty was owed). However, the difficult of this case is that it does seem difficult to foresee such a psychiatric illness from the crash if they were driving slowly

Facts: A couple were driving home in a horse and buggy and came across a rail crossing. The guard said they could cross. A train was approaching and they only just made it across. The claimant (Mr Coultas) faints and suffers a psychiatric illness as a result

Held: The Privy Council held hat no duty of care was owed in respect of her psychiatric illness. Sir Richard Crouch showed he was cautious of extending liability to these types of psychiatric illness cases and so found such a claim by Mrs Coultas was not acceptable. He said if we found cases where the initial injury was nervous or mental shock to leave the defendant liable, this “would be extending the liability for negligence much beyond what that liability has hitherto been held to be.”

Facts: The police (who were at the scene during the Hillsborough disaster) were suing the chief constable for failure to take care and claimed they suffered a psychiatric illness due to witnessing the deaths.

Held: The court held, for policy reasons it would be unfair for the police to recover and they also lacked the close ties of love and affection