Negligence Liability and Defenses in a Car Damage Case

Question 1

Issue

Whether the man can claim compensation from the woman for the damages suffered due to her negligence. Whether the woman can rely on any defence.

Law

In order to claim negligence, there are certain factors that need to be satisfied. First, there must be a duty of care owed to others in existence, second, such a duty of care must be breached, third, the plaintiff must suffer damages due to the breach of duty of care and the damages must be the direct cause of the breach of duty of care and must be reasonably foreseeable.

The landmark case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] held that if the damages or harm from the failure to take reasonable care is foreseeable, a duty of care is owed regardless of any contractual relationship. The court also stated that a duty of care is owed to anyone who can get affected by the actions of a person. This is known as the neighbour principle where any person who get affected is a neighbour and a duty of care is owed to that neighbour. The breach of such a duty of care would mean that the person who owed the duty of care did not take sufficient care to prevent harm to others and sufficient measures were expected considering the fact that the damages were reasonablhy foreseeable.

The defendant can either invoke voluntary assumption of risk or contributory negligence as defence to a claim of negligence. In case of voluntary assumption of risk, it provides complete defence to the defendant when the plaintiff voluntarily puts himself in a position where the damages are obvious and inevitable. This is an absolute defence which discharges the defendant from obligation. On the other hand, contributory negligence does not discharge a defendant completely and rather divides the obligation between the parties since even the plaintiff contributes towards the damage suffered.

Application

As per the given hypothetical situation, it can be seen that pregnant lady parked her new suv car without the handbrake on which caused the car to go downhill and damage the car of a man. In such a situation, whether the pregnant woman was negligent can be determined using the elements discussed above. First, it can be said that the woman owed a duty of care to the man as per the principle laid down in Donoghue v Stevenson since her negligence could harm others and such a harm is reasonably foreseeable. The woman should have understood that parking a car uphill without handbrake would have open the possibility that the car might run into others and harm. The man in this case suffered damages directly due to the negligence of the woman.

Lastly, the woman in this regard neither can use the defence of contributory negligence nor voluntary assumption of risk.

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be said that the man can claim compensation for the damages suffered directly due to the negligence of the woman.

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