A Worker Undertaking Call Centre Training

Duty of Care: best interest; defensible decision making; contextualising behaviour; identification of positive and negative risks

A health care provider must understand many aspects of statutory duty. Duty is “a legal obligation imposed on one to conform to a recognized standard of care to safe guard the rights of others”. The standard of care is usually related to medical malpractice cases. Standard of care is defined as “the caution and prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances or by appropriate authority for such situations”. This is mainly of importance because all physicians are expected to perform within the guidelines of this duty, and this standard or care changes depending on the circumstances. “Once the duty has been established, the plaintiff must show that it was breached by presenting evidence of the facts of the case and testimony from expert witnesses regarding whether the standard was met”(Showalter, 2014 p 139). Negligence results in the failure to meet this standard of care, and the jury usually decides if the defendant is guilty of committing a negligent act. Causation is an aspect of negligence. The defendant could be held liable for negligence if the act was considered to be foreseeable, and if the injury occurred from a breach of duty.

The Civil Liabilities Act 2002 defines negligence as a failure on the part of the defendant which results in the harm of the plaintiff which could have been prevented by taking reasonable care. The breach of duty must be foreseeable, Sullivan v Moody. The risk must be not insignificant, and a reasonable person under similar circumstances would have taken precaution against the harm. In this case

At the first stage of the Anns test, two questions arise: “The first question is whether the circumstances disclose reasonably foreseeable harm and proximity sufficient to establish prima facie duty of care. The first inquiry at this stage is whether the case falls within or is analogous to a category of cases in which a duty of care has previously been recognized. The next question is whether this is situation in which a new duty of care should be recognized. At the second stage of the Anns test, the question still remains whether there are residual policy consideration outside the relationship of the parties that may negative the imposition of a duty of care. It is useful to expressly ask, before imposing a new duty of care, whether despite foreseeability and proximity of relationship, there are other policy reasons why the duty should not be imposed. This part of test only arises in cases where the duty of care asserted does not fall within a recognized category. The trial judge concluded that the pleadings disclosed a cause of action in negligence and that the plaintiffs should be permitted to bring a class action”.

Although the Health and Safety at work etc. Act 1974 provides criminal legislation for employers, there are various key health and safety requirements that identify a duty of care owed to an employee by an employer, that have been set via precedents. This essay aims to identify the key health and safety requirements owed by an employer to an employee, deriving from common law, including the principle of vicarious liability

There are two common factors that must exist before the law says a duty of care exists, which are

SHC34-1.1 Explain what it means to have a duty of care in own work role.

|Assignment 055 Principles for Implementing Duty of Care in Health, Social Care or Children’s and Young People’s Settings | |

Relevant law: To establish duty of care, plaintiff must prove the reasonable foreseeability of harm as the result of defendant’s acts or omissions,[ Chapman v Hearse (1961)] and the relationship was ‘sufficiently close’ to require defendant not to put the plaintiff at risk.

Note that a duty of care may not be owed to a particular claimant, if the claimant was unforeseeable. See:

Torts of negligence are breaches of duty that results to injury to another person to whom the duty breached is owed. Like all other torts, the requirements for this are duty, breach of duty by the defendant, causation and injury(Stuhmcke and Corporation.E 2001). However, this form of tort differs from intentional tort as regards the manner the duty is breached. In torts of negligence, duties are breached by negligence and not by intent. Negligence is conduct that falls below the standard of care established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm(Stuhmcke and Corporation.E 2001). The standard measure of negligence is the universal reasonable person standard. The assumption in this case is that a reasonable

The main idea of the law of negligence is to ensure that people exercise reasonable care when they act by measuring the potential harm that may foreseeably cause harm to other people. Negligence is the principal trigger for liability to ascend in matters that deal with the loss of property of personal injury. Therefore, a person cannot be liable for something unless they have been found negligent or have contributed to the loss of property or injury to the plaintiff (Stuhmcke, 2005). There is more to

The court determines a person is negligent when they fail to comply with their duty and when their conduct falls below the standard of care. The standard of care in negligence is established by the law to protect others against the unreasonable risk of harm. The risk must be foreseeable. Pennsylvania courts determine a party’s standard of care by examining what a reasonable person would do under similar circumstances. A reasonable person would also consider industry standards, historical information, and other guiding information when making decisions. This will allow the party to be on “notice”. With regarding notice, the question that should be asked is “do the facts, circumstances, or history inform you of potential harm.”. One way to determine whether or not someone is a reasonably prudent person is to use a formula—Burden < Probability * Injury. The formula is designed to weigh out the Burden of adequate precautions against the probability of the action occurring and the gravity of the resulting injury. If the Probability of the Injury of the injury and the level of the injury is higher than the Burden, then the party will be found negligent.

“In the majority of cases that come before the courts, whether the defendant owes the plaintiff a duty of care can be determined from precedent created by earlier cases; for example manufacturers of goods owe a duty of care to consumers, motorist owe a duty of care to other road users, boat captains owe a duty of care to their passengers, teacher owe a duty of care to their students, occupier owe a duty of care to persons who come on to their property. . (Andy Gibson, Douglas Fraser, Business Law 5th edition, Pearson 2011 page No.165, 166 and 169).”

Despite the general principle excluding liability for omissions, liability may arise in certain exceptional circumstances. Although these situations where a duty may arise on the basis of an omission are difficult to classify, what is usually required in all of them is some element of proximity. This may be created in a number of situations which will now be looked at. In addition, in such cases, the factors for establishing a duty of care (forseeability, proximity, fair, just and reasonable) laid down in Caparo will also need to be looked at.