Information about Duty Of Care

Tort law II
Part of the common law series
Negligent torts
Negligence  · Negligent hiring
Negligent entrustment  · Malpractice
Negligent infliction of emotional distress
Doctrines affecting liability
Duty of care  · Standard of care
Proximate cause  · Res ipsa loquitur
Calculus of negligence  · Eggshell skull
Vicarious liability  · Attractive nuisance
Rescue doctrine  · Duty to rescue
Comparative responsibility
Duties owed to visitors to property
Trespassers  · Licensees  · Invitees
Defenses to negligence
Contributory negligence
Last clear chance
Comparative negligence
Assumption of risk  · Intervening cause
Strict liability
Ultrahazardous activity
Product liability
Nuisance
Other areas of the common law
Contract law  · Property law
Wills and trusts
Criminal law  · Evidence

In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring that they exercise a reasonable standard of care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others. For an action in negligence, there must be an identified duty of care in law.

Duty of care may be considered a formalization of the implicit responsibilities held by an individual towards another individual within society. It is not a requirement that a duty of care be defined by law, though it will often develop through the jurisprudence of common law. Doctors will be held to reasonable standards for members of their profession, rather than those of the general public in cases related to their fields.

Breach of duty of care, if resulting in an injury, may subject an individual to liability in tort. Duty of care is an important duty of care must exist and must have been breached for the tort to occur.

The Duty of Care between individuals may exist between individuals not currently related, but related in some other manner, as defined by common law. For instance, an engineer or construction company involved in erecting a building may be reasonably responsible to tenants inhabiting the building many years in the future. This point is illustrated by the Supreme Court of South Carolina, in its Terlinde v. Neely 275 S.C. 395, 271 S.E.2d 768 (1980) decision, later cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in Winnipeg Condominium Corporation No. 36 v. Bird Construction Co. [1995] 1 S.C.R. 85:

The plaintiffs, being a member of the class for which the home was constructed, are entitled to a duty of care in construction commensurate with industry standards. In the light of the fact that the home was constructed as speculative, the home builder cannot reasonably argue he envisioned anything but a class of purchasers. By placing this product into the stream of commerce, the builder owes a duty of care to those who will use his product, so as to render him accountable for negligent workmanship.

Examples

Duty of care is evident between drivers of automobiles on the road. Each individual driver owes a duty of care to each of the other surrounding people - motorists, cyclists and pedestrians - to prevent accidents and drive in a reasonable manner. In the case of an automobile accident, drivers not paying attention or driving irresponsibly will have breached that duty of care.

Manufacturers owe a duty of care to consumers who ultimately purchase and use the products. In the case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 of the House of Lords, Lord Atkin stated:

My Lords, if your Lordships accept the view that this pleading discloses a relevant cause of action you will be affirming the proposition that by Scots and English law alike a manufacturer of products, which he sells in such a form as to show that he intends them to reach the ultimate consumer in the form in which they left him with no reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, and with the knowledge that the absence of reasonable care in the preparation or putting up of the products will result in an injury to the consumer’s life or property, owes a duty to the consumer to take that reasonable care.

References

• Donoghue (or McAlister) v. Stevenson House of Lords [1932] All ER Rep 1, AC 562, All ER Rep 1
• Winnipeg Condominium Corporation No. 36 v. Bird Construction Co., [1995] 1 S.C.R. 85, 1995 CanLII 146 (S.C.C.)

•  • [ e] Legal doctrines

Attractive nuisance Calculus of negligence Caveat emptor Caveat venditor Contra proferentem Duty of care Eggshell skull Fair use First-sale doctrine Good-faith exception Living tree doctrine Ignorantia juris non excusat Implied powers Implied terms of a contract Odious debt Plain view doctrine Proximate cause Res ipsa loquitur Sovereign immunity Stare decisis or Precedence rule Standard of care Unclean hands Vicarious liability