The Caparo Test — Duty of Care in UK Negligence

The Caparo test is the classical three-stage framework for establishing a duty of care in novel negligence claims under English law. It emerged from Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990], and although the Supreme Court in Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [2018] reframed how English courts approach duty of care, the Caparo three-stage test remains core LLB and SQE1 tort syllabus and is still applied in genuinely novel situations.

The three stages. Under Caparo, a duty of care arises where (1) harm was reasonably foreseeable; (2) there is sufficient proximity between claimant and defendant; and (3) it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty. All three must be satisfied. The test is incremental in spirit — courts should extend the law of negligence one analogous step at a time, not by sweeping principle.

Why Caparo replaced Anns. The two-stage test from Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] had asked (i) whether there was sufficient proximity to presume a duty, and (ii) whether any policy considerations should negate or limit it. By 1990, the House of Lords had grown concerned that Anns was producing an overly generous expansion of liability, particularly for economic loss and public authorities. Anns was expressly overruled in Murphy v Brentwood DC [1991]. Caparo was the replacement, emphasising caution and incrementalism.

The facts of Caparo.Caparo Industries bought shares in Fidelity plc in reliance on audited accounts prepared by Dickman. The accounts overstated Fidelity’s profits. Caparo sued the auditors in negligence. The House of Lords held that, although harm was foreseeable, there was insufficient proximity between auditor and third-party investor: auditors owe a duty to the company and to existing shareholders acting collectively, not to individual investors or the public at large. The case therefore illustrates proximity doing decisive work.

Reasonable foreseeability.The defendant must reasonably foresee that a person in the claimant’s position could be harmed by the type of conduct in question. This is an objective test, assessed at the time of the alleged breach. It is a low threshold and rarely determinative on its own.

Proximity. There must be a sufficiently close relationship of neighbourhood — a term traceable to Lord Atkin’s dictum in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932]. Proximity is not purely physical; it extends to assumption of responsibility (see Hedley Byrne v Heller [1964]), reliance, and particular relationships recognised by earlier cases. In Caparo itself, it was the absence of proximity between auditor and share purchaser that defeated the claim.

Fair, just and reasonable.The third stage is essentially a policy gate. Courts consider floodgates, indeterminate liability, the role of other remedies (contract, statute), the defendant’s status (public authority, emergency service), and the quality of the claimant’s conduct. It is rarely the decisive limb but frequently shapes the judicial reasoning.

Robinson and the incremental approach. The Supreme Court in Robinson clarified that the three-stage Caparo test is not a freestanding formula to be applied to every duty-of-care question. Where an existing category already recognises a duty on analogous facts, courts should apply the established category. Only in genuinely novel cases does Caparo’s three-stage test do the work. The incremental approach, echoing Brennan J in Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman (1985), is now the dominant method.

How to use it in an exam. Start by asking whether the facts fall within an established category of duty — trespass, employer/employee, medical, occupier, public authority rescue, etc. If yes, apply that category. If no, move to Caparo and walk through all three stages. Identify which stage does the decisive work; examiners reward candidates who can explain why proximity or fair-just-reasonable fails, not those who mechanically recite the test.

Our full Caparo v Dickman case brief sets out the facts, held, and ratio in the structured format examiners expect. Drill the three stages with our tort law flashcards and test your application on past papers.