“Unforeseeable chemical reaction made explosion damages too remote despite negligence.”
An employee negligently knocked an asbestos cement cover into a cauldron of molten sodium cyanide. This caused an unexpected chemical reaction leading to an explosion that injured Doughty. Splashing from the liquid would have been foreseeable but not explosion.
Whether damages from an explosion were recoverable when the defendant's negligence made splashing foreseeable but the chemical reaction causing explosion was unknown and unforeseeable.
The Court of Appeal held that damages were not recoverable. The explosion resulted from an unforeseeable chemical reaction, making the injuries too remote despite the negligent act.
This case illustrates the limits of the foreseeability test and shows that even direct causal connections may not lead to liability if the mechanism is unforeseeable. It's crucial for understanding when the chain of causation is broken by unforeseeable events.
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OSCOLA Citation
Doughty v Turner Manufacturing Co Ltd [1964] 1 QB 518
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