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Situations in which a duty of care have previously been held to exist include doctor and patient, manufacturer and consumer, [2] and surveyor and mortgagor. [3] Accordingly, if there is an analogous case on duty of care, the court will simply apply that case to the facts of the new case without asking itself any normative questions. [4]
Whilst a prima facie duty of care is imposed for physical harm where the criteria of proximity, foreseeability, and policy are fulfilled, liability for psychiatric harm rests upon an individual's connection to a traumatising event; those not physically endangered may not be owed a duty of care unless they can fulfil several relational criteria.
Chapman v Hearse is a significant case in common law related to duty of care, reasonable foreseeability and novus actus interveniens within the tort of negligence.The case concerned three parties; Chapman who drove negligently, Dr Cherry who assisted him on the side of the road, and Hearse who, in driving negligently, killed Dr Cherry while he was assisting Chapman.
The many decided cases on this subject, if providing no simple ready-made solution to the question whether or not a duty of care exists, do indicate the requirements to be satisfied before a duty is found. The first is foreseeability. It is not, and could not be, in issue between these parties that reasonable foreseeability of harm is a ...
A duty of care can be established through a two-stage test. First, a prime facie duty of care arises when there is proximity. Two, the prima facie duty can be negated from policy considerations. A threshold of foreseeability exists for the test to be applied. Keywords
Stated differently, foreseeability was the logical link between, and the test for, breach of the duty of care and the damages. This is the supreme test, and may be rephrased as "the liability of a consequence ... was natural or necessary or probable."
proximity entails asking whether the parties are in such a "close and direct" relationship that it would be "just and fair having regard to that relationship to impose a duty of care in law" [27] reasonable foreseeability entails asking whether an injury to the plaintiff was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s negligence [28]
The case's main significance is that, after the shift within the common law of negligence from strict liability [1] to a reasonable standard of care, [2] this case advocated a middle way, namely: Even if the loss or harm is not itself foreseeable, liability may arise provided the actual loss falls with a "foreseeable class of harm".