Negligence - 1849- 1899

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This page lists 43 cases, and was prepared on 28 October 2012.

Thomas -v- Winchester (1852) 6 NY 697
1852	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	(New York) A chemist carelessly issued poison in answer to a request for a harmless drug, and he was held responsible to a third party injured by his neglect.

Ellis -v- Sheffield Gas Consumers Co (1853) 2 E & B 767
1853	Negligence, Utilities

Brass -v- Maitland (1856) 6 E & B 470
1856	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	There is an implied warranty from a consignor to the carrier as to the non-dangerous nature of what is to be carried.

Levy -v- Spyers [1856] 1F&F 3
1856	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	“It is negligence where there are two ways of doing a thing, and one is clearly right, and the other is doubtful, to do it in the doubtful way”

Blyth -v- Birmingham Waterworks Co (1856) 11 Exch 781
1856 Baron Alderson	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Blyth -v- The Company of Proprietors of the Birmingham Waterworks [1856] EWHC Exch J65; (1856) 11 Exch 781; 156 ER 1047
6 Feb 1856 Exc Alderson B	Utilities, Negligence
	The plaintiff sought damages, alleging negligence by the defendants in maintaining their water pipes. His house had been flooded when a mains leaked. Held: Alderson B: "Negligence is the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do. The defendants might have been liable for negligence, if, unintentionally, they omitted to do that which a reasonable person would have done, or did that which a person taking reasonable precautions would not have done. A reasonable man would act with reference to the average circumstances of the temperature in ordinary years."
	Link[s] omitted

Tuff -v- Warman [1857] EngR 642; (1857) 2 CB NS 740; (1857) 140 ER 607
9 Jun 1857	Negligence, Transport
	EngR In an action for an injury to the plaintiffs vessel in consequence of a collision with a vessel under the control of the defendant, there being conflicting evidence of negligence on the one side and on the other. The jury were told, that, if the negligence or default of the plaintiff was in any degree the direct or proximate cause of the damage, he was not entitled to recover, however great might have been the negligence of the defendant: but that, if the negligence of the plaintiff was only remotely connected with the accident, then the question was whether the defendant might by the exercise of ordinary care have avoided it. Held. A proper direction. The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, 17 & 18 Vict. e. 104, leaves the rule of law upon this subject as it was before ; the only effect of the 296th and 298th sections being, to bring the non-compliance with the Admiralty sailing regulations within the category of negligence.
	Merchant Shipping Act 1854
	Link[s] omitted

Tuff -v- Warman [1858] EngR 165; (1858) 5 CB NS 573; (1858) 144 ER 231
1858	Transport, Negligence
	Link[s] omitted

Blackmore -v- Bristol and Exeter Ry. Co (1858) 8 E & B 1035
1858 Coleridge J	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Regina -v- Inhabitants of High Halden (1859) 1 F & F 678; 26 Digest (Repl) 383
1859 Blacknurn J	Negligence, Torts - Other, Road Traffic	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court considered the liability of the parish for injury arising from a failure to repair the road. The road was "an old soft road formed of Weald of Kent clay, and had never been repaired with hard substances". The evidence was that in wet weather and in the winter months it was "very bad, soft and in an impassable state" with deep ruts which "formed in fact the watercourses of the road". Blackburn J directed the jury that the parish was not bound to make the road hard ". . . but they were bound in some way, by stone or other hard substances, if necessary, to put the road in such repair so as to be reasonably passable for the ordinary traffic of the neighbourhood at all seasons of the year." A guilty verdict was returned.

Farrant -v- Barnes (1862) 11 CB (NS) 553
1862	Transport, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	A duty of care from a consignor to a carrier's servant that the goods to be transported can be safely carried, is owed independently of any contract.

Fish -v- Kelly (1864) 17 CBNS 194; 144 ER 78; 42 Digest 108
1864	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	Mere casual observations are not to be used to found a duty of care.

Normile -v- Braby [1866] EngR 12; (1866) 4 F & F 962; (1866) 176 ER 867
1866	Negligence
	Link[s] omitted

Indermaur -v- Dames (1866) LR 1 CP 274; LR 2 CP 311
1866 QBD Willes J	Negligence	Casemap
	The court set out an occupier of land's duty towards his invitees: "And, with respect to such a visitor at least, we consider it settled law, that he, using reasonable care on his part for his own safety, is entitled to expect that the occupier shall on his part use reasonable care to prevent damage from unusual danger, which he knows or ought to know; and that, where there is evidence of neglect, the question whether such reasonable care has been taken, by notice, lighting, guarding, or otherwise, and whether there was contributory negligence in the sufferer, must be determined by a jury as a matter of fact." The court premised the existence of the occupier's duty on the absence of any contributory negligence on the part of the invitee.

'The Mersey Docks And Harbour Board' Trustees -v- William Gibbs And Others; The Mersey Docks And Harbour Board' Trustees -v- Pierce, W Penhallow, And Others [1866] EngR 174; (1864-66) 11 HLC 686; (1866) 11 ER 1500
30 Jun 1866	Negligence
	Link[s] omitted

Skelton -v- London and North Western Ry Co (1867) LR 2 CP 631; [1867] 16 LT 563; [1867] 15 WR 295
1867 CCP Willes J	Negligence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The defendant's railway lines crossed a public footpath. The lines were bounded by gates which swung to, as required by law, but were not as usual also fastened. The deceased stopped as one train passed, but then stepped out in front of another and was killed. Held: The action in negligence failed. The deceased had so contributed to his own that the company was not responsible by virtue of the failure to fasten the gate. Willes J said: "Actionable negligence must consist in the breach of some duty . . If a person undertakes to perform a voluntary act, he is liable if he performs it improperly, but not if he neglects to perform it. Such is the result of the decision in Coggs v Bernard."

Collis -v- Selden (1868) L R 3 C P 495
1868 Willes J	Negligence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The defendant installed a chandelier in a public house. It fell and injured the plaintiff. Held: There was nothing to say that the defendant had any knowledge that the plaintiff, as opposed to members of the public in general, would enter the public house. He was not liable.

Smith -v- London and St Katharine Docks Co [1868] LR 3 CP 326
1868	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The plaintiff sought damages after being injuring crossing a gangway onto a ship. Held: The defendant had invited the plaintiff to the property and must have known the gangway would be used for this purpose.

George -v- Skivington (1869) L R 5 Ex 1; 39 LJ Ex 8; 21 LT 495
1869	Negligence, Consumer	Casemap 1 Citers
	There was an injury to the wife, from a hair wash purchased under a contract of sale with the husband. Held: The wife had a good cause of action. There was a duty in the vendor to use ordinary care in compounding the article sold, and that this extended to the person for whose use he knew it was purchased, and this duty having been violated, and he, having failed to use reasonable care, was liable in an action at the suit of the third person.

Trefftz And Son -v- Antonio Canelli [1872] EngR 27; (1872) 9 Moo PC NS 22; (1872) 17 ER 422
14 Jun 1872 PC	Negligence, Contract, Commonwealth
	C, a Merchant domiciled at Alexandria, being indebted to the Appellants, Merchants carrying on business at Leipsic, for the purpose of settling litigation between them, deposited with the Respondent (an English Merchant resident at Alexandria) certain Rills drawn in his favour as security for the Appellants' debt; the Respondent by the agreement between C and ths Appellants constituting himself a voluntary depositee of them, and undertaking to be responsible for them to the Appellants ''until the effective encashment of them, which remains entrusted to C." Held: The Respondent was not guilty of a breach of duty under this agreement in allowing C to take the Bills when due, for encashment at his discretion, and was not bound to see that C handed over the money to the Appellants.
	Link[s] omitted

Cunnington -v- Great Northern Ry. Co (1883) 49 LT 392
1883 Brett MR	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Morran -v- Waddell (1883) 11 R 44
1883	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Speight -v- Gaunt (1882) 22 Ch D 727; [1883] EWCA Civ 1
20 Jan 1883 CA Sir George Jessel MR	Trusts, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	A trustee must act for the beneficiaries as a prudent person of business would act in his own affairs: 'It seems to me that on general principles a trustee ought to conduct the business of the trust in the same manner that an ordinary prudent man of business would conduct his own, and that beyond that there is no liability or obligation on the trustee.'
	Link[s] omitted

Heaven -v- Pender, Trading As West India Graving Dock Company (1883) 11 QBD 503; 52 LJQB 702; 49 LT 357; 47 JP 709
30 Jul 1883 CA Brett MR, Cotton LJ, Bowen LJ	Negligence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The plaintiff was a painter. His employer engaged to repaint a ship, and the defendant erected staging to support the work. The staging collapsed because one of the ropes was singed and weakened, injuring the plaintiff. Held: The defendant had invited the plaintiff on to the land, and knew he would be using the staging. (Obiter) "The proposition which these recognized cases suggest, and which is, therefore, to be deduced from them, is that whenever one person is by circumstances placed in such a position with regard to another that every one of ordinary sense who did think would at once recognize that if he did not use ordinary care and skill in his own conduct with regard to those circumstances he would cause danger of injury to the person or property of the other, a duty arises to use ordinary care and skill to avoid such danger..... Let us apply this proposition to the case of one person supplying goods or machinery, or instruments or utensils, or the like, for the purpose of their being used by another person, but with whom there is no contract as to the supply. The proposition will stand thus: whenever one person supplies goods, or machinery or the like, for the purpose of their being used by another person under such circumstances that everyone of ordinary sense would, if he thought, recognize at once that unless he used ordinary care and skill with regard to the condition of the thing supplied or the mode of supplying it, there will be danger of injury to the person or property of him for whose use the thing is supplied, and who is to use it, a duty arises to use ordinary care and skill as to the condition or manner of supplying such thing. And for a neglect of such ordinary care or skill whereby injury happens a legal liability arises to be enforced by an action for negligence. This includes the case of goods, etc., supplied to be used immediately by a particular person or persons or one of a class of persons, where it would be obvious to the person supplying, if he thought, that the goods would in all probability be used at once by such persons before a reasonable opportunity for discovering any defect which might exist, and where the thing supplied would be of such a nature that a neglect of ordinary care or skill as to its condition or the manner of supplying it would probably cause danger to the person or property of the person for whose use it was supplied, and who was about to use it. It would exclude a case in which the goods are supplied under circumstances in which it would be a chance by whom they would be used or whether they would be used or not, or whether they would be used before there would probably be means of observing any defect, or where the goods would be of such a nature that a want of care or skill as to their condition or the manner of supplying them would not probably produce danger of injury to person or property. The cases of vendor and purchaser and lender and hirer under contract need not be considered, as the liability arises under the contract, and not merely as a duty imposed by law, though it may not be useless to observe that it seems difficult to import the implied obligation into the contract except in cases in which if there were no contract between the parties the law would according to the rule above stated imply the duty." (Coton LJ) "In declining to concur in laying down the principle enunciated by the Master of the Rolls, I in no way intimate any doubt as to the principle that anyone who leaves a dangerous instrument, as a gun, in such a way as to cause danger, or who without due warning supplies to others for use an instrument or thing which to his knowledge, from its construction or otherwise, is in such a condition as to cause danger, not necessarily incident to the use of such an instrument., or thing, is liable for injury caused to others by reason of his negligent act."

Speight -v- Gaunt (1883) 9 App Cas 1; [1883] UKHL 1
26 Nov 1883 HL Lord Blackburn	Trusts, Negligence	Casemap 1 Cites
	Link[s] omitted

Elliott -v- Hall (1885) 15 QBD 315
1885 QBD Grove and A. L. Smith JJ	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The defendants, colliery owners, consigned coal to the plaintiff's employers, coal merchants, in a truck hired by the defendants from a wagon company. The plaintiff was injured in the course of unloading the coal by reason of the defective condition of the truck. Held: The plaintiff was entitled to recover on the ground of the defendants' breach of duty to see that the truck was not in a dangerous condition.

Wakelin -v- London and South Western Railway Co (1886) 12 App Cas 41
1886 HL Lord Watson	Personal Injury, Negligence	Casemap
	The liability of a defendant must rest in the first place on there being "some negligent act or omission on the part of the company or their servants which materially contributed to the injury or death complained of . . Mere allegation or proof that the company were guilty of negligence is altogether irrelevant; they might be guilty of many negligent acts or omissions, which might possibly have occasioned injury to somebody, but had no connection whatever with the injury for which redress is sought, and therefore the plaintiff must allege and prove, not merely that they were negligent, but that their negligence caused or materially contributed to the injury."

Thomas -v- Quartermaine (1887) 18 QBD 685
1887 Bowen LJ	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court considered an employer's duty to his workman injured at work. Bowen LJ "It is no doubt true that the knowledge on the part of the injured person which will prevent him from alleging negligence against the occupier, must be a knowledge under such circumstances as lead necessarily to the conclusion that the whole risk was voluntarily incurred. The maxim, be it observed, is not "Scienti non fit injuria," but "Volenti." There may be a perception of the existence of the danger without appreciation of the risk; as, where the workman is of imperfect intelligence." and "The defendant in such circumstances does not discharge his legal obligation by merely affecting the plaintiff with knowledge of a danger which but for a breach of duty on his own part would not exist at all. But, where the danger is one incident to a perfectly lawful use of his own premises, neither contrary to statute nor common law, where the danger is visible and the risk appreciated, and where the injured person, knowing and appreciating both risk and danger, voluntarily encounters them, there is, in the absence of further acts of omission or commission, no evidence of negligence on the part of the occupier at all. Knowledge is not a conclusive defence in itself. But, when it is a knowledge under circumstances that leave no inference open but one, viz. that the risk has been voluntarily encountered, the defence seems to me complete." The words at the end of s. 1 do no more than "remove such fetters on a workman's right to sue as had been previously held to arise out of the relation of master and workman." S2(3) does not extend the master's liability beyond that imposed by s. 1, and s. 2, sub-s. 1. In each case specified in s. 1, the maxim Volenti non fit injuria is applicable, and, if a workman, knowing and appreciating the danger and the risk, elects voluntarily to encounter them, he can no more maintain an action founded upon the statute than he can in cases to which the statute has no application.
	Employers' Liability Act 1880 10

Yarmouth -v- France [1887] 19 QB D 647; 57 LJQB 7 (QBD)
11 Aug 1887 CA Lord Esher MR, Lindley LJ, and Lopes LJ (dissenting)	Employment, Negligence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The plaintiff was employed by the defendant to drive carts. He objected that the horse had a vicious nature, but was obliged to drive it in any event. The horse kicked him. Held. For the purposes of the 1880 Act, the plaintiff was an employee, the horse was plant in the employer's business and its character was a defect in that plant. "plant" includes whatever apparatus or instruments are used by a business man in carrying on his business. The employer was liable in negligence, and "The maxim Volenti non fit injuria was not wanted as between master and servant. It was only wanted, if at all, where no such relation as that of master and servant existed." Where the plaintiff knew of a defect: "mere knowledge of the danger will not do: there must be an assent on the part of the workman to accept the risk, with a full appreciation of its extent, to bring the workman within the maxim Volenti non fit injuria. If so, that is a question of fact." Lord Esher MR said: "I detest the attempt to fetter the law by maxims. They are almost invariably misleading; they are for the most part so large and general in their language that they always include something which really is not intended to be included in them."
	Employers' Liability Act 1880 10

Ross -v- Keith (1888) 16 R 86
1888	Scotland, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Victorian Railway Commissioners -v- Coultas (1888) 13 App Cas 222; [1888] UKPC 3
21 Jan 1888 PC	Negligence, Damages, Commonwealth	Casemap 1 Citers
	(Victoria) The appellant's gatekeeper had negligently invited the plaintiffs to cross a railway line as a train approached. There was no collision, but the plaintiff sought damages for physical and mental injuries from shock. Held: The defendant's appeal on liability succeeded. It was difficult, if not impossible, to recover damages for "illness which was the effect of shock caused by fright". Such injury was regarded as being too remote a head of damages in an action for negligence. There would be evidential difficulty in deciding upon the causes of psychiatric symptoms. "Damages arising from mere sudden terror unaccompanied by any actual physical injury, but occasioning a nervous or mental shock, cannot under such circumstances, their Lordships think, be considered a consequence which, in the ordinary course of things, would flow from the negligence of the gate-keeper. If it were held that they can, it appears to their Lordships that it would be extending the liability for negligence much beyond what that liability has hitherto been held to be."
	Link[s] omitted

Prentice -v- Assets Co Ltd (1889) 17 R 484
1889	Scotland, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Low -v- Bouverie [1891] 3 Ch 82
1891 CA Bowen L	Negligence, Estoppel	Casemap 1 Citers
	If a trustee chooses to answer questions from a stranger about the cestui que trust, his legal obligation is only to answer honestly and to the best of his information. He need not make enquiries to support those answers. "Estoppel is only a rule of evidence: you cannot found an action upon estoppel . . [It] . . is only important as being one step in the progress towards relief on the hypothesis that the defendant is estopped from denying the truth of something which he has said." and "The doctrine that negligent misrepresentation affords no cause of action is confined to cases in which there is no duty, such as the law recognises, to be careful." and "an estoppel, that is to say, the language upon which the estoppel is founded, must be precise and unambiguous. That does not necessarily mean that the language must be such that it cannot possibly be open to different interpretations, but it must be such that it will be reasonably understood in a particular sense by the person to whom it is addressed."

Scholes -v- Brook (1891) 64 LT 674
1891	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers

Cowley -v- Newmarket Local Board [1892] AC 345
1892 HL	Nuisance, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	No action in tort lay against highway authorities for a failure to repair a highway. They were no more liable than were the local inhabitants.

Gladwell -v- Steggall (1893) 5 Bing NC 733; 8 Scott 60
1893	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The plaintiff was a girl of ten years of age who claimed she had been negligently treated by the defendant surgeon and apothecary. She sued in an action ex delicto, alleging a breach of the contract under which they had been employed, though it was her father who had paid the bill.

Saunders -v- Holborn District Board of Works [1895] 1 QB 6
1895 QBD Charles J, Mathew J	Nuisance, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	Mr Saunders was injured when he slipped on an icy pavement, and claimed damages. Held: A breach of the duty to remove snow did not give rise to a private law cause of action, any more than a breach of the duty to maintain the highway. Before the 1891 Act (Charles J) "it was not the duty of the sanitary authority to take any steps to clear the streets of ice and snow." It was a duty, which "formerly rested upon the householders." (Mathew J)

Meux -v- Great Eastern Railway Co [1895] 2 QB 387
1895	Negligence, Vicarious Liability	Casemap 1 Citers
	The plaintiff sought damages from the railway company for carelessly damaging his goods even though he did not himself have a contract with the company. Held: A duty was owed by the railway company towards the goods owner, applying cases which had held that a railway company owed a duty of care towards passengers injured by the carelessness of that company's employee even though the passenger had bought his ticket from another company. No distinction was drawn between an employee injuring the plaintiff and damaging or losing his property.

Hawkins -v- Smith (1896) 12 Times LR 532
1896 QBD Day and Lawrance JJ	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	A dock labourer in the employ of the dock company was injured by a defective sack which had been hired by the consignees from the defendant, who knew the use to which it was to be put, and had been provided by the consignees for the use of the dock company, who had been employed by them to unload the ship on the dock company's premises. Held: The defendant was liable for negligence.

Caledonian Ry Co -v- Mulholland or Warwick [1898] AC 216
1898 HL	Negligence, Transport	Casemap 1 Citers
	The appellant company were held not liable for injuries caused by a defective brake on a coal wagon conveyed by the railway company to a point in the transit where their contract ended, and where the wagons were taken over for haulage for the last part of the journey by a second railway company, on which part the accident happened. It was held that the first railway company were under no duty to the injured workmen to examine the wagon for defects at the end of their contractual haulage. There was ample opportunity for inspection by the second railway company. The relations were not proximate.

Caledonian Railway Co -v- Mulholland [1898] AC 216
1898 Lord Shand	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court discussed responsibility for a thing dangerous in itself, as 'an instrument noxious or dangerous in itself which might produce an accident from the mere handling of it.'

Williams -v- Birmingham Battery and Metal Co [1899] 2 QB 338
1899	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The burden of proof for establishing the defence of volenti non fit injuria lies on the defendant.

Burrows -v- Rhodes [1899] 1 QB 816
1899	Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers