Donoghue v Stevenson

Facts

Donoghue was bought a bottle of ginger beer by a friend in a cafe in Paisley. The bottle was opaque and sealed. After Donoghue drank some of the contents, the remains of a snail were seen when the rest was poured out. She alleged that she suffered shock and gastro-enteritis. She had no contract with the manufacturer, Stevenson, and the friend, not she, had bought the drink. She sued the manufacturer in the Scottish courts, alleging that he had failed to take reasonable care to prevent snails entering the bottles.

History

The Scottish courts held that her pleadings disclosed no relevant ground of action, and she appealed to the House of Lords. The appeal was decided on a preliminary question of law, assuming the facts alleged were true; they were never proved.

Issue

Whether a manufacturer of a product sold to a retailer in a form intended to reach the consumer without any possibility of intermediate examination owes a duty to take reasonable care towards the ultimate consumer, even though there is no contract between them.

Held

Appeal allowed by a majority. The manufacturer of a product of this kind owed a duty to the consumer to take reasonable care that it was free from defects likely to cause injury, and the pursuer's claim was relevant in law and could proceed to proof.

Ratio

• A manufacturer of products which are sold in a form that precludes the possibility of intermediate examination, and who knows that the absence of reasonable care in preparing them will result in injury to the consumer's life or property, owes a duty to the consumer to take that reasonable care.
• Liability in negligence is not confined to cases of contract or to categories already recognised; a person must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which he can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure his neighbour, meaning persons so closely and directly affected by his act that he ought reasonably to have them in contemplation.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• The law of negligence reflects a moral idea that one should not injure one's neighbour, which the law narrows by asking who is a neighbour in law, and the answer is persons so closely and directly affected by one's act that they ought to be in contemplation.
• Cases that restricted liability to articles dangerous in themselves, or that required a contract, concerned the circumstances in which those rules applied and did not establish that no duty can arise outside them.
• The manufacturer made the drink for sale to the public in a sealed bottle, controlled how it was made and could not expect any examination between his factory and the consumer, so the consumer relied on him to take care.

Obiter

• The general statement of the neighbour principle, which went wider than the issue of manufacturers of food and drink, was offered as a unifying idea behind the many particular categories of negligence and as a guide to when a duty of care arises.

Where it fits in the module

In Tort (FHS), Donoghue is the case from which the general part of the course starts. Candidates must be able to place it in the development of the duty of care from Anns v Merton LBC [1978] AC 728 to Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605, and then to the incremental, principle-based approach now adopted in Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [2018] UKSC 4 and Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2015] UKSC 2. Questions ask whether the neighbour principle is a legal rule or a moral aspiration, how far the case is a product liability decision rather than one on general duties, and its relation to the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

Criticisms

• The neighbour principle is expressed at such generality that it does not decide cases, since it says that foreseeable harm to a close and direct neighbour is actionable without explaining how proximity or fair limits are set.
• Lord Atkin's general principle was treated by later courts as too wide, particularly for economic loss and omissions, and so the case is better understood as a narrow decision on manufacturers than as a basis for a general theory of duty.
• The majority departed from the traditional rule that privity of contract limits liability, and the dissenting view that the change should be left to Parliament remains a respectable view about the proper function of the courts.
• The decision leaves a consumer who suffers loss from a defective product with a right to damages in negligence only if fault can be proved, and fault is hard to prove against a manufacturer; this is why strict liability reforms were thought necessary.