The tort of negligence is one of the most important fields of tort law in modernized law. When a claimant suffers from an act or an omission on behalf of a third party, innumerable ways and means are proposed to impose liability on the defendant. It is essential and necessary for the claimant to prove that the defendant was at fault. Negligence at tort is a faulty parameter considering the reason or cause for the liability to arise. In order to enable the action on the claim for negligence, the claimant is expected to fill three requirements. In the first situation, a duty of care arises from the particular situation wherein, he/she was at the time of the incident, encountered a breach of that duty, and thereafter he/she suffered damages caused by the breach of duty which in this situation was not too remote. The imposition of negligence liability is a complex matter to be fulfilled in judging new cases. This fulfillment is vital when judges are dealing with novel cases where some of the circumstances can cause problems in terms of interpretation.
[...] In X and another v Hounslow London Borough Council[6] , Madisson J held that previous facts such as assault on X at McDonalds; the making of threats to the Claimants; the obtaining of keys to the flat by youths who did not live there; and the reluctance of the Claimants through fear to complain about what was happening to them” made the serious physical attack on the claimants in their flat by the youths clearly foreseeable, at least since 7th November. Therefore, the first requirement to establish a duty of care using the Caparo approach is completed. The second step in establishing a duty of care is to determine whether the relationship between the two parties was of sufficient proximity. [...]
[...] Therefore, the Caparo guidelines have been followed by Madisson J successfully in establishing that a duty of care arose between the two parties in this particular situation. It is understandable now how the way to impose liability may be seen as hurdles to overcome by claimants as this case shows the complexity and accuracy required to prove so. Now that is has been established that the Defendant owed a duty of care to the Claimants, it must be proved that there was a breach of that duty in order to amount to negligence. [...]
[...] They lived in a flat provided by the Defendant council. The Defendant's Social Services Department recognised them as vulnerable and provided support. There were concerns about the suitability of the flat since 1996, and it was made clear that the family had to be re located. Secondly, X and Y had made complains to the defendant about local youths threatening them, stealing from them and assaulting them in early September 2000. In mid-November, the youths took over the flat and effectively imprisoned the family for a whole weekend. [...]
[...] Accordingly, the Defendant was in the breach of its duty of care to the Claimants. The last element missing in the demonstration is causation. The claimants have to prove that the breach of the duty owned to them by the Defendant is what caused the effective loss or injury. The test to apply here is the test. The test shows that if the Claimants had been moved from their flat soon enough, the attacks they suffered would not have happened. [...]
[...] Therefore, Madisson J chose to apply the tri-partite test as established in the case Caparo v Dickman because he was dealing with difficult and developing area of the which has not been treated before. Madisson J used the Caparo method constructing his demonstration in a very logical way. He took each requirements imposed by the tri-partite test and applied it to the case. The fist requirement to establish a duty of care, as stated above, is that the harm must have been reasonably foreseeable. [...]
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