‘A prudent man will guard against the possible negligence of others when experience shows such negligence to be common’.
Lord Wright said: ‘a claim for damages for breach of a statutory duty intended to protect a person in the position of the particular plaintiff is a specific common law right which is not to be confused in essence with a claim for negligence. The statutory right has its origin in the statute, but the particular remedy of an action for damages is given by the common law in order to make effective, for the benefit of the injured plaintiff, his right to the performance by the defendant of the defendant’s statutory duty.’
Judges:
Lord du Parq, Lord Wright
Citations:
[1949] AC 155
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Levine v Morris 1970
Lord Widgery said: ‘All motorists are guilty of errors of one kind or another, and I think it would be quite unreal if roads were designed on the assumption that no driver would ever err.’ . .
Cited – Regina v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison, Ex parte Hague, Weldon v Home Office HL 24-Jul-1991
The prisoner challenged the decision to place him in segregation under Prison Rule 43. Under rule 43(1) the initial power to segregate was given to ‘the governor’. The case arose from the fact that the governor of one prison had purported to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Negligence
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.187296