ABSTRACT
Duty situations The tests for determining the existence of a duty of care have changed. Prior to 1932, there were numerous incidents of liability for negligence but there was no connecting principle formulated which could be regarded as the basis of all of them. These were referred to as ‘duty situations’. The neighbour principle The first attempt to create a rationale for all the discrete duty situations was made by Brett MR in Heaven v Pender (1883), but the most important formulation of a general principle is that of Lord Atkin in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932). This is known as the ‘neighbour principle’:
The ‘two stage’ test The ‘neighbour principle’ is a test based on reasonable foresight and is unquestionably too wide. It needed further refining.
