2015-08-21
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If all three things above exist – person is liable.
Owed a duty of care
The doctrine of duty of care includes four rules:
1. Cannot be predicted
2. Are you doing your actions affecting other people?
3. Was that reasonable?
4. Public policy
Duty of care for economic loss
Do you owe a duty of care for financial loss? The principle is that you can claim for economic loss directly connected to physical damage, but not for unrealised profits.
A good example of duty of care for economic loss is case about lobsters called Muirhead v Industrial Tank Specialities Ltd 1986. Man has bought lobsters in the summer when they are cheap and wanted to resell them in the winter when they are rare and expensive. He put them in a tank with the pump – so they can live with oxygen. As it turned out the pump was bad quality and all lobsters died. Man wants to sue company that produced pump and get a compensation for future profit, but according to the law he can get money only for the pump and spent money for lobsters.
