ABSTRACT

This chapter sets out the principles of negligence law and liability. A tort means causing damage or injury to someone else without any legal excuse and in circumstances where it is proper that the injured party should get some compensation for his/her loss. Claims in tort account for 85 per cent of all civil litigation in the UK. If any person can reasonably foresee that his actions could cause damage or injury to another if done negligently or recklessly then he owes a duty to that person to take reasonable care not to cause him that type of injury or damage by his actions. Negligence is very much judge-made law. There was no law of negligence at all in the UK until the principles were laid down in a landmark case in 1932, Donoghue v. Stevenson, which was almost the first consumer protection/product liability case.