Mary V Peter Case Summary

The statutory standard of care for professionals such as teachers can be found in s 22 of the Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld) which states that

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

Establishing negligence requires the plaintiff to prove the three elements of negligence before a court. The elements are that, the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care, the duty of care was breached, and that the harms suffered were directly related to the defendant’s breach. For a successful claims the plaintiff must satisfy all three by the balance of probabilities, which has been the case since Donohue v Stevenson. Simon must therefore prove that there was a duty of care owed to him by the defendant, his teacher, Mr Philpot. Therefore, he must prove that the harm suffered would have been reasonably foreseeable due to the actions or omission of the defendant. In this case, Mr Philpot owes Simon a duty of care, as it is reasonably foreseeable that a failure to provide sufficient supervision could result in injury when considering the nature of the environment they are in and the age of the students. Therefore, the first element is satisfied.

Negligence is upholding a certain leavel of care by determining if it meets the four components nessessary for a claim; duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages. In this case duty was not handled correctly. Duty means you agree to take care of a health care patients. THe girls working at the Good Samaritan Home did not take proper care of the residents. Breach of duty is broken down into four categories; Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance. In this case the breach of duty refers to nonfeasance. There was a failure to act, by no other employees bringing the ause to attention. Causation requires an injury to be due to the healthcare professionals negligence. In the case of abuse in the Good Samaritan case there was no other way the injuries could have happened. The damages refers to the injuries caused to the residents.

In Caparo Industries plc v Dickman7, it was determined that courts had to test the duty by “whether the damage was reasonably foreseeable, whether there was a relationship of proximity between claimant and defendant, and whether it is just and reasonable to impose a duty.”8 If so, then a duty of care could arise.

Causation: in result of factual and legal causation must be established. In other words there will be no liability if the D did not cause the result White. The decision on whether the D is at fault may depend on which test for legal causation is used by the courts; a D may escape liability if the ‘daftness’ test in Roberts/Williams is applied, whereas the harsher thins skull rule in Blaue may result in liability as it involves taking your victim as you find him however daft or unpredictable they are.

To find out whether the respondents breach their duty of care or not, it turns on 5B of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) which provides that: A person is not unless the risk was foreseeable or the risk was not insignificant or a reasonable person in the person’s position would have

Relevant law: Standard of care requires the defendant to do what an ‘ordinary, reasonable and prudent’ person would do.[4 Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002 ACT S42]4 If the government’s omission is so

Furthermore, as discussed in chapter 3 there is inconsistent application of the legal rules to determine the liability of the medical professional. Therefore, as previously discussed solicitors are usually hesitant to pursue clinical negligence claims by the means of SFA. With SFA being the only means for claimants to afford to pursue clinical negligence claims the removal of civil legal aid for clinical negligence claims has meant that many claimants are unable to access the necessary legal representation and in turn access courts for their civil rights to be determined. Consequently, many claimants are not compensated for medical injuries inflicted due to the negligence of the medical professional, thus the current system is failing to meet its primary aim. More importantly, the practical difficulties in accessing and in turn using the civil justice system for clinical negligence claims has meant that the Scottish Government is failing to meet its obligation under Article 6 and 8 of the

Negligence occurs when a citizen has suffered loss due to the carelessness of another. The first element of a negligence case is to find if the duty of care, the obligation of an individual to hold responsibility while performing any acts affecting others, is breached (Negligence and the Duty of Care, 2013). The Supreme Court of Queensland’s decision in May 2011, during the trial of French v QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited [2011] QSC 105 demonstrates how a taxi driver breached his duty of care and therefore, would be liable for the death of his passenger (Hamilton, 2011).

In most courts, if the defendant violates the statutory provisions of duty of care, the violation of laws and regulations will be considered negligence just as a car ran a red light is a violation of traffic rules. If a statute does not specify the duty of care, the court may determine relevant duty of care implicitly established in the legislature through the judicial interpretation. At the same time, even if a statute does not expressly or impliedly reflect legislative intent of the standard of care with certainty, the court can still invoke the provisions of the law to determine the standard of conduct of a reasonable person.

Mr Stephens owed Mr Harley a duty of care. The failure to warn Mr Dick of the live connection breached that duty as it is reasonably foreseeable that in the future, someone will be requested to remove the SHWS and that person will be at risk if there is a live connection. Narrowing the class of persons to only those unaware of the danger is not justified as anyone who accessed the roof was subject to a degree of harm. The factual causation was satisfied given that the death could have been prevented had Mr Stephens taken the precautions. ‘Mr Stephens’ negligence was a necessary condition of the incurrence of the harm, and it is appropriate that the scope of Mr Stephens ' liability extend to this harm’ thereby satisfying s 5D(1)(b), establishing causation.

Both defendants deny any liability on the ground that they were not in the breach of duty of care since the accident was caused by circumstances beyond their control. This court is invited to rule on the issue of whether the respondents were in breach of duty of care to deceased and injured children.

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

In Gregg v Scott, Mr. Malcolm Gregg (‘the claimant’), the House of Lords examined the law of negligence in the area of personal injury. In order for the claimant to have a successful claim in court, the onus to shifts to the claimant to demonstrate that a duty of care owed by the doctor, there was a breach of that duty, an injury was sustained, and the negligence on behalf of the doctor Dr. Andrew Scott (‘defendant’) was a cause of the ‘injury’. If these elements are not satisfied, the claimant may lose its entitlement to full compensation.