tort

It should be seen that the courts do not always mark out the bounds of duty to limit the responsibility of the defendant, they sometimes do it to protect the interests of someone who has suffered a loss. However it is important for the courts to limit the responsibility of the defendant due to the ‘floodgates problem’. What is more, the courts sometimes treat certain groups of defendants leniently by limiting their liability in some cases.

On one hand, the courts draw a line to mark out the bounds of duty to protect the interests of and compensate those who have suffered a loss and injury and this is also one of the major aims of tort law. In Donoghue v. Stevenson, the courts judged the manufacturer of the ginger beer, David Stevenson of Paisley owned a duty of care to Mrs Donoghue even though there was no contract between them. In Lord Aitkin’s “neighbour” principle, liability should be found as long as someone failed to “take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions” which he/she can “reasonably foresee” would be likely to injure his/her neighbour, policy factor seems to be irrelevant in deciding whether a duty of care exists.

On the other hand, policy factor is one of the major factors in drawing a line to mark out the bounds of duty. The reason of the courts using public policy principles to draw a line to mark out the bounds of duty to limit the responsibility of the defendants is twofold. Firstly, the responsibility of the defendants ought to be limited due to the ‘floodgates’ problem of too many potential claimants. The most obvious example would be where the damage to the claimant is nervous shock. The courts tend to use restrictive devices such as ‘unforeseeable claimant’ and lack of proximity to restrict the liability of the defendants. In the judgment of Alcock v Chief Constable of the south Yorkshire police, where the claims were bought after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 where the plaintiffs in this case were mostly secondary