Negligence: the duty of care and the Caparo test, breach of duty and the standard of care, causation and remoteness of damage, and the rules on pure economic loss and psychiatric injury.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to set out the three elements of negligence, explain the duty of care and the standard of care with its risk factors, apply the causation and remoteness rules, and explain the special rules on psychiatric injury and pure economic loss. It is the central tort problem-question topic.

Duty of care

Breach and the standard of care

In deciding breach, the court weighs risk factors: the probability of harm (Bolton v Stone), the seriousness of the potential harm (Paris v Stepney BC), the cost and practicality of precautions (Latimer v AEC), and any public benefit in taking the risk (Watt v Hertfordshire CC).

Causation, remoteness and the special rules

The claimant must prove factual causation with the "but for" test (Barnett v Chelsea Hospital, where the doctor's negligence did not cause the death). The damage must not be too remote: only damage of a reasonably foreseeable type is recoverable (The Wagon Mound (No 1)), although the precise way it happens (Hughes v Lord Advocate) and its extent (the thin-skull rule, Smith v Leech Brain) need not be foreseen.

Two areas are restricted by policy:

• Psychiatric injury ("nervous shock"): claimants are split into primary victims (in the zone of danger, Page v Smith) and secondary victims, who must satisfy the Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire control mechanisms (close tie of love and affection, proximity in time and space, perception with their own senses).
• Pure economic loss: generally not recoverable in negligence unless it flows from a negligent misstatement under Hedley Byrne v Heller, where there is a special relationship and reasonable reliance.

Risk factors and the special rules in more depth

The risk factors are weighed together, not applied as a checklist. A low probability of harm points away from breach (Bolton v Stone, a cricket ball escaping a high boundary only rarely), but a high seriousness of potential harm raises the standard (Paris v Stepney BC, a one-eyed worker needing goggles because total blindness was at stake). The cost and practicality of precautions is balanced against the risk (Latimer v AEC, sawdust on a flooded floor was a reasonable response), and a clear public benefit can justify taking a risk (Watt v Hertfordshire CC, rescuing a trapped person). Common practice and the state of knowledge at the time also bear on the standard (Roe v Minister of Health).

The psychiatric injury rules deserve careful application. A primary victim who was within the physical zone of danger, or reasonably believed themselves to be, can recover for a recognised psychiatric illness if some physical harm was foreseeable (Page v Smith). A secondary victim, who witnesses harm to another, must satisfy all the Alcock control mechanisms: a close tie of love and affection with the immediate victim, proximity in time and space to the event or its immediate aftermath, and perception with their own unaided senses. Pure economic loss is generally irrecoverable in negligence unless it arises from a negligent misstatement within a special relationship of reasonable reliance (Hedley Byrne v Heller, refined in Caparo), which keeps the floodgates closed against indeterminate economic claims.

How negligence is examined

Negligence is the central tort problem-question topic. Examiners reward working through duty, breach and damage in order, applying each element and its authority to the named parties, and recognising when an established duty makes the full Caparo test unnecessary.