Negligence: Breach of Duty of Care

Like I said in my previous article,a person seeking redress in negligence must show that the person sued is in breach of duty of care owed to him. The person must first of all establish that a duty of care is owed to him. That was where our last topic was centred on. today I would like to talk about the breach of the duty of care which is the second thing that the court considers in treating negligence cases.

A plaintiff seeking redress in negligence can show breach of Duty of Care by showing that the defendants did not exercise reasonable care in the matter that is called to question. The court of appeal stated in Adesun vs Adisa that 'where negligence is alleged,the plaintiff must set out or give full particulars of the negligence'.

Remember that a person is in breach of duty of care if he he does something which a reasonable man would not do or he omits to do something which a reasonable man would do. 'A reasonable man' is an expression used to show a a person of normal intelligence with average knowledge and common sense in everyday matters. so it is not enough to show that you are acting to the best of your own judgement if your base is below what is expected of a reasonable man or a man of normal intelligence. For example, in the case of Paris vs Stepney Borough Council, a workman who to the knowledge of the employer had only one good eye was not provided with Google's for his work and so suffered an injury that cost the loss of his only could eye. It will be seen that a reasonable man who is employing a one-eyed workman should know that goggles should be provided for him to avoid injuries or damage to the good eye.

the standard of a reasonable man for one who has a skill is such that he is judged by the degree of skill normally showed by specialists in that field. anything short of that would lead to breach of his duty of care to others who are likely to be injured by his mistake. If a person holds himself out as having the scale of a carpenter or a bricklayer, he will be expected to show the average level of competence normally possessed by persons doing that kind of job or work. Liability will arise if he falls short of that standard. In the case of Jones vs Manchester Corp, where a patient died after the mall administration of anaesthetic by a doctor qualified for only 5 months, it was held that arose due to inexperience are no defence.

It should be noted that liability is not always straight on people who are negligent. Mistakes are bound to occur. The facts all circumstances surrounding each case determines whether defendants are held liable in negligence. An example is the case of Roe vs Minister of Health. In this case,the plaintiff was paralysed after receiving an injection in hospital. That happened because phenol had leaked into the syringe. At that time it was not known that phenol could get into the syringe true invisible cracks. the court held that the defendants we are not negligence as they could not have avoided the accident, judged by the standards of a reasonable person at that time.

The standard of care may sometimes be affected by state of emergency or a dilemma. an arc done in the agony of the moment may be quite reasonable, even though might be otherwise, had there been time for reflection. In Jones vs Boyce, a passenger in a coach which got out of control, reasonably feared that it was about overturned, so he jumped off and broke his leg. The coach did not in fact overturn. The court heard that his conduct was reasonable in the agony of the moment.

In all cases, it is seen that in order to not be in breach of your duty of care to others, one needs to act like a reasonable man in all circumstances. In whatever you do, make sure you do not always overreact honey whatever skill you have, try to put in your best and avoid errors in it so that if eventually someone gets injured, to be defended by the fact that you put out more scare into what you did.

I guess we will cut it here and continue from where we stopped last time. It was nice having you

Thanks for reading 💖

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