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TORTIOUS LIABILITY IN CONSTRUCTION CASES A. INTRODUCTION 1. Generally speaking, a tort is a form of wrongful conduct that results in a harmful consequence, normally personal injury or property damage, and sometimes, as you will see below, financial losses. Hence tort law is the body of legal rules that govern the various tort actions that can be brought in the event of these damage. 2. In other words, tort law defines the limits of permissible conduct in our society, and provides a legally enforceable remedy and compensation for those who are injured by legally impermissible conduct. 3. In general, “fault” has come to be the determinant for liability in modern tort law. An accident victim can obtain compensation through the tort system only if he can prove fault on the part of the defendant, whether he was careless or intended to cause the harm. Tort law will only provide compensation to the person suffering injury or damage, if the person causing the harm was at fault in doing so. 4. Under tort law, fault is generally taken to mean either a failure to take reasonable care, or an intention to cause harm. However, in most cases, tort law does not offer protection for most forms of “pure economic loss” (see below). 5. Tort actions can usually be divided into different categories, for example, negligence, international torts, nuisance, statutory compensations, to name a few. Although there can be overlap between different actions, each is concerned with a different kind of human conduct. Each tort action must therefore be considered according to its own constituent elements.

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TORTIOUS LIABILITY IN CONSTRUCTION CASES

A. INTRODUCTION

1. Generally speaking, a tort is a form of wrongful conduct that results in a harmful

consequence, normally personal injury or property damage, and sometimes, as you

will see below, financial losses. Hence tort law is the body of legal rules that govern

the various tort actions that can be brought in the event of these damage.

2. In other words, tort law defines the limits of permissible conduct in our society,

and provides a legally enforceable remedy and compensation for those who are

injured by legally impermissible conduct.

3. In general, “fault” has come to be the determinant for liability in modern tort law.

An accident victim can obtain compensation through the tort system only if he

can prove fault on the part of the defendant, whether he was careless or intended

to cause the harm. Tort law will only provide compensation to the person

suffering injury or damage, if the person causing the harm was at fault in doing so.

4. Under tort law, fault is generally taken to mean either a failure to take reasonable

care, or an intention to cause harm. However, in most cases, tort law does not

offer protection for most forms of “pure economic loss” (see below).

5. Tort actions can usually be divided into different categories, for example,

negligence, international torts, nuisance, statutory compensations, to name a few.

Although there can be overlap between different actions, each is concerned with a

different kind of human conduct. Each tort action must therefore be considered

according to its own constituent elements.

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6. Negligence, which is by far the most important of the tort actions, will be the

main focus of this seminar.

B. TORT OF NEGLIGENCE

7. Negligence can be broadly defined as careless behaviour that causes personal

injury or property damage. In such circumstances, the person suffering injury or

property damage (the plaintiff) will have a right to sue the wrongdoer (the

defendant) for compensation (damages) in the tort of negligence.

8. In order to succeed in a negligent action, the plaintiff will have to prove, on a

balance of probabilities, that:

(1) there exists in law a duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff;

(2) the behaviour of the defendant fell below the requisite standard of care;

(3) there was a causal relationship (or, causation) between the defendant’s

conduct and the damage suffered by the plaintiff;

(4) the Defendant had no defence in law.

Each of the above elements will be discussed in turn.

(1) Duty of care

9. In the past century, a duty of care only existed where there was a pre-existing

legally recognizable relationship between the parties, for example,

employer/employee, doctor/patient, etc. Rarely would a new category of

relationship be recognized as giving rise to a duty.

10. However, the case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 brought a change to the

law. In that case, the appellant was a customer in a café, and the respondent was a

manufacturer of ginger beer. While at the café the appellant drank some ginger

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beer, which was manufactured and supplied to the café by the respondent.

Because the bottle of ginger beer had become contaminated by a decomposed

snail, the appellant became sick. In considering whether the respondent owed the

appellant a duty of care, Lord Atkin’s gave his famous speech:

“You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably

foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law is my neighbour? The

answer seems to be – persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I

ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing

my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question.”

11. The significance of Donoghue v Stevenson lies in its recognition of a duty relationship

where the connection between the parties was transient; it shifted the focus of

duty from a requirement of pre-existing relationship, to the concept of foreseeability

of harm.

12. Hence, in order to establish a duty of care there are several requirements:

(i) it must be reasonably foreseeable that the conduct of the defendant will

cause damage to the plaintiff;

(ii) there must be sufficient ‘proximity’ between the parties;

(iii) the situation must be one in which the court considers it fair, just and

reasonable that the law should impose a duty of care;

(iv) in some cases, there must be no ground of public policy for excluding a

duty.

(i) Reasonable Foreseeability

13. Since Donoghue v Stevenson, reasonable foreseeability of harm has become the main

characteristic of a duty of care. As stated above, it establishes that if injury occurs

as a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s act, a duty of care is

owed. This principle becomes known as the ‘neighbour principle’.

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(ii) Proximity

14. Proximity is a concept similar to foreseeability. Where the defendant has directly

caused physical harm to the plaintiff or his property by an act, a duty may readily

be established by showing foreseeability of harm and nothing else.

15. Where, however, there is a failure to act or the loss is economic in nature or is a

mental trauma or for some other reason the imposition of liability based upon

foreseeability would be problematic, the law will insist on a substantially closer

relationship between the parties.

16. For example, in a case where a doctor advises a male patient on a sterilization

procedure, the doctor, of course, owes a duty of care to his patient. However, it

has been held that in the event the sterilization reversed itself and the patient’s

sexual partner became pregnant, it has been held that the doctor owed no duty of

care to the patient’s sexual partner due to a lack of proximity. This position is

otherwise if it was the patient’s spouse who became pregnant.

(iii) Fair, just and reasonable

17. Even if there is the requisite degree of proximity, a duty may still be denied if in

the court’s view the imposition of liability would not be fair, just and reasonable.

18. In Peabody Donation Fund v Parkinson [1985] AC 210, the plaintiff builders were

constructing a residential development. One of their senior employees privately

agreed with an inspector of the defendant local authority to deviate (without

authorization) from the approved plan of construction. This deviation was

unsuccessful, requiring the plaintiff to redo the work at considerable cost.

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19. The House of Lords in that case held that no duty of care was owed because in

view of the plaintiff’s having, through its employee, consented to the deviation, it

would not be just and reasonable to impose a duty of care.

(iv) Public Policy

20. This concept concerns with the social, economic and administrative impact of

judicial decision making. Put simply, if a particular legal decision is likely to have

significant implications for society or the economy or the administration of

justice, the Court may reach a decision that the Defendant does not owe the

Plaintiff a duty of care.

Duty of care in relation to different categories of harm

21. Under this heading, different categories of harm will be considered:

(i) Physical damage

(ii) Pure economic loss

(iii) Pure economic loss and negligent statements

(iv) Pure economic loss and negligent acts or services

(v) Pure economic loss and defectively constructed buildings

22. Please note, however, that the above are merely examples of the application of the

concept of duty of care, and the list is not exhaustive.

(i) Physical damage

23. For cases of directly caused physical damage, reasonable foreseeability of physical

harm, as mentioned in the case of Donoghue v Stevenson, will suffice for a positive

determination of duty of care; there is no need to look beyond the foreseeability

by the defendant of the result in order to establish that he is in a ‘proximate’

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relationship with the plaintiff. Therefore on this basis, for example, in a car

accident, a car driver owes a duty of care to his passengers, pedestrians, and other

road users.

24. Where physical damage has not been directly caused, foreseeability of physical

damage will not be the only requirement; the court will require the proof of the

necessary proximity, and take into account considerations of justice and

reasonableness and policy, as explained above.

(ii) Pure economic loss

25. Under this heading, it is essential to distinguish between (a) pure economic losses

on the one hand, and (b) economic losses consequent on physical damage on the

other.

26. Pure economic loss means a purely financial loss, independent from and not

consequent upon any physical damage to the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s property.

27. The general position is that no duty of care is owed for such losses, even where

the loss is reasonably foreseeable.

28. The classic authority and an excellent example in this regard is Spartan Steel v

Martin [1972] 3 All ER 557.

29. In this case, the plaintiffs manufactured stainless steel alloys at its factory.

Continuous power was required to maintain the temperature in its furnaces used

to manufacture the steel alloys. The defendant’s employees were engaged in

excavation work nearby, and through their carelessness in the operation of an

excavating shovel, damaged the main, publicly owned cable supplying power to

the plaintiff’s factory. The plaintiff’s operations were shut down for fourteen

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hours while the cable was repaired. The plaintiff sued the defendant in the tort of

negligence, claiming damages for:

(1) damage to a ‘melt’ that was in the process of manufacture at the time of

the power shutdown;

(2) profits that would have been made had the melt not been damaged; and

(3) profits on another four melts that would have been put into the furnace

but for the power shutdown.

30. The English Court of Appeal held that the plaintiff can recover for:

l the physical damage to the one melt, and

l the loss of profit on that melt consequent thereon;

but not for:

l the loss of profit on the four melts because that was economic loss independent

of the physical damage.

31. In short, the general position is that (1) losses caused by physical damage and (2)

losses consequential upon physical damage are recoverable; while pure financial

losses independent of physical damage are not recoverable, subject to the

following categories.

(iii) Pure economic loss and negligent statements

32. Historically, the courts have been very reluctant to recognize pure economic

losses, and have taken the view that recovery for these losses should be permitted

through contractual remedies only.

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33. It was in the context of negligently made statement causing pure economic loss

that was first recognized as being recoverable. The landmark case in this area is

Hedley Byrne v Heller [1963] 2 All ER 575, which eventually led to some other

variations which will further be illustrated in the following sections.

34. In the Hedley Byrne case, A sought advice from its bank regarding the

creditworthiness of a potential customer. The bank consulted B, the bank of the

potential customer, for its opinion. B replied on a ‘without responsibility’ basis,

and provided a favourable opinion on which A relied.

35. B’s opinion proved to be incorrect, as a result of which A suffered financial loss.

A sued B in negligence for recovery of that loss. The House of Lords held that B

had effectively excluded its liability for the opinion. Nonetheless, the House of

Lords explained the circumstances in which a duty of care can arise when no

disclaimer is made.

36. Summarily, it was held that where the defendant is possessed of a special skill and

undertakes to give advice (within the range of his special skill) to another, where

she knows or ought to know that the other is likely to rely on that advice, a

sufficiently close relationship then exists giving rise to a duty of care.

37. After certain refinements in subsequent cases, the law as it stands now is that a

duty of care for negligent statement is owed where the defendant giving advice or

information:

(1) was fully aware of the nature of the transaction which the plaintiff had in

contemplation;

(2) knew that the advice or information would be communicated to him directly

or indirectly; and

(3) knew it was very likely that the plaintiff would rely on that advice or

information in deciding whether or not to engage in the transaction in

contemplation.

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(iv) Pure economic loss and negligent acts or services

38. A typical variation of the Hedley Byrne principle is with negligent conduct, as

opposed to words.

39. An example in this area is White v Jones [1995] 1 All ER 691, in which the testator

had a quarrel with the plaintiffs, who were his two daughters. The testator

executed a will excluding his daughters from his estate. He later reconciled with

his daughters, and wrote to the defendant solicitors, giving instructions for the

preparation of a revised will, to include gifts to his daughters.

40. The solicitors did not respond immediately, and for some months did nothing to

draw up a new will and arrange for its execution. The testator died before a new

will could be drawn up. The daughters sued the solicitors in negligence.

41. In the House of Lords, it was said that a special relationship normally only arose

between the parties where there is a fiduciary relationship1 or where the defendant

has voluntarily answered a question or tendered skilled advice or services in

circumstances where he knows or ought to have known that an identified plaintiff

will rely on his answers or advice.

42. In this case there was neither any fiduciary duty between the solicitor and the

daughters, nor did the daughters rely upon the solicitors.

43. However, the House of Lords eventually held that the solicitor who accepted

instructions to draw a will knew that the future economic welfare of the daughters

was dependent upon his careful execution of the task. Although the daughters might

not have relied on his actions, the solicitor by accepting the instructions had

1 A fiduciary relationship, in simple terms, is a relationship of trust between two parties, e.g. parents/children, doctors/patients, solicitors/clients, etc.

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entered upon, and had therefore assumed responsibility for, the task of procuring the

execution of a skillfully drawn will.

44. Hence it can be seen from this case that the key to this expansion of liability is the

concept of ‘assumption of responsibility’, although this is still a flexible concept which

is far from clear at this stage.

(v) Pure economic loss and defectively constructed buildings

45. Having established the above principles, the most relevant question to the present

topic is that if the plaintiff discovers defects in the building that he purchased,

whether his loss can be characterized as physical damage, and thereby attracting a

duty of care based on reasonable foreseeability alone, or whether it is pure

economic loss, requiring the plaintiff to prove the Hedley Byrne proximity as

explained above.

46. In Murphy v Brentwood District Council [1991] 1 AC 398, the plaintiff bought a house

built pursuant to plans approved by the defendant authority. The defendant

(through its consulting engineers) failed to note an error in calculation that,

rendered the foundations inadequate.

47. Some years after taking possession, the plaintiff noticed that cracks had developed

in the foundations. The plaintiff could not afford the cost of repair so he sold the

house unrepaired for less than the proper market price. The plaintiff sued the

local authority to recover this loss.

48. The House of Lords held that the defendant authority was not liable because the

damage suffered by the building owner in such circumstances was not physical

damage but purely economic loss of the expenditure incurred in repairing the

structural defect.

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49. The House of Lords further stated that a defect, once known, became merely a

defect in quality. To permit building owners or occupiers to recover their

economic loss would lead to opening a floodgate to numerous similar claims.

50. The House of Lords eventually held that the defendant council owed no duty of

care to the plaintiff when it approved the plans for a defective raft foundation for

the plaintiff's house.

51. The issue was confirmed recently in the Hong Kong case of Bank of East Asia

Limited v Tsien Wui Marble Factory Ltd. & Others [2000] 1 HKLRD 268.

52. In short, unless the negligent work or services provided by the builder/contractor

causes damage to property other than the defective building itself, the damage is

regarded as purely economic and does not attract a duty of care (unless there is

Hedley Byrne proximity).

53. This line of authorities however has attracted much criticism as this ruling

effectively undermines the tort law function of deterrence by allowing the builders

and inspectors to tolerate shoddy workmanship.

54. In some other common law jurisdictions including New Zealand, Canada and

Australia, particularly in the area of negligently constructed or inspected buildings,

recent case law suggests that pure economic loss caused by the defendant’s

negligent act may be recoverable even where the criteria outlined in Hedley Byrne

are lacking.

(2) Standard of care

55. In order to find a defendant liable in tort, the Plaintiff must not only prove that

the defendant owes him a duty of care, but also show that the defendant is in

breach of it. The test for deciding whether there has been a breach of duty is:

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whether defendant’s conduct can be said to have fallen below that which was

reasonable to expect of him in all the circumstances.

56. In other words, the standard against which the defendant is judged is the standard

of the reasonable person. This is an objective standard to be determined by the judge.

57. For example, in the famous case of Nettleship v Weston [1971] 2 QB 691, it has been

held that the standard of care required of a driver on the road is the standard of

the reasonable competent and experienced driver, regardless of his actual

experience.

58. In Hong Kong, being a well-developed jurisdiction, an important source of

guidance on the ambit of reasonable standard can be found in legislation, which

set standards for a wide range of activities, especially for construction site and

industrial safety. These standards will be accepted by judges as strong evidence of

what is reasonable.

Persons with special skills

59. For persons with special skills, such as doctors, architects, or engineers, the

standard of care is usually higher than that of the ordinary reasonable person, who

are not expected to have any specialized training.

60. The classic authority for this proposition is the case of Bolam v Friern Hospital

[1957] 2 All ER 118. In this case, the plaintiff, who was suffering from mental

illness, was advised by one of the defendant’s consultant doctors to undergo

electro-convulsive therapy. He signed a consent form but was not advised of

certain risk of fracture, which was considered to be about one in ten thousand.

The plaintiff suffered fractures. While the use of relaxant drugs would have

excluded the risk, no relaxant drugs or manual control were used.

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61. The evidence showed that at the time of the treatment there were two different

bodies of opinion, one of which would have used relaxant drugs, and one which

would not, basically because the use of such drugs were attended by other risks

which might cause death. Similarly, there were different views in the profession as

to whether patients should be warned about the risk of fracture, or whether they

should be left to inquire.

62. The plaintiff sued the defendant in negligence for personal injury damages.

McNair J stated that:

“where you get a situation which involves the use of some special skill or competence,

then... the test as to whether there has been negligence or not is... the standard of the

ordinary skilled man exercising and professing to have that special skill... it is sufficient

if he exercises the ordinary skill of an ordinary competent man exercising that particular

art...”

63. This Bolam principle, frequently applied in cases of medical negligence, applies to

all professions or callings which require special skill, knowledge or experience.

This test was recently applied in Atzori v Dr. Chan King Pan [1999] 2 HKLRD 77,

in which the defendant was held to have fallen below the Bolam standard both as

regards the decision to operate, and as regards the performance of the surgery.

Architects and engineers

64. As in the case of other professions, the standard generally required of an architect

in discharging his duties is the reasonable skill, care and diligence of an ordinary

competent and skilled architect, as explained above. The standard is similarly

expressed for engineers and quantity surveyors.

65. The application of this principle in construction cases can be seen, by way of an

example, in the case of Eckersley v Binnie & Others (1988) 18 Con. L.R. 1, in which

a link was built between two rivers at Abbeystead. An explosion occurred and

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people were killed and injured. Lord Justice Bingham described the standard of

care in the following terms:

“... a professional man should command the corpus of knowledge which forms part of the

professional equipment of the ordinary member of his profession... He must bring to any

professional task he undertakes no less expertise, skill and care than other ordinary

competent members bring but no more. The standard is that of the reasonable average

professional. The law does not require of a professional man that he be a paragon

combining the qualities of polymath and prophet.”

66. The relevant standard is that of competent practitioners prevailing at the time

when the particular professional services are performed, as distinct from the

perhaps higher standard of competent practitioners prevailing at the time of the

trial.

67. An example in this regard is the case of Perry v Tendring District Council (1984) 1

Con. L.R. 75. In this case, The plaintiffs owned some properties, the foundations

of which had been constructed by specialist contractors to a building contractor.

The plans had been approved and the foundations inspected. The foundations as

designed and constructed made adequate provision against subsidence, but not

against clay heave, either short- or long-term.

68. The site of the dwellings had formerly been covered with trees, which were felled.

Some journals, which dealt expressly with problems created by clay swelling after

removal of trees, were issued after the design and construction of the foundations,

but the problems of long-term heave were not known generally in the

construction industry or engineering profession prior to that date.

69. It was held that the relevant standard is that prevailing at the time when the

services were rendered and not at the time of trial.

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70. The fact that procedures or designs were improved after an accident does not of

itself establish negligence, since it might not have been foreseeable to a reasonable

professional before the accident that a particular combination of circumstances

would lead to the accident. However after the accident the exercise of reasonable

care and still may require steps to be taken to prevent a recurrence.

71. Having said that, the standard of reasonable care and skill is not one of perfection,

and an error of judgment or wrong opinion is not necessarily negligent.

72. In order to establish a breach of duty by a professional man, it is generally

insufficient to demonstrate that other practitioners would have taken a different

course if a respectable body of professional opinion would have regarded the

course taken as acceptable.

73. In Nye Saunders v Alan E. Bristow (1987) 37 B.L.R. 92, which was about an architect

who, after being engaged in a project, increased the cost of the work without

drawing the attention of his client to the fact that inflation was not taken into

account in previous calculations.

74. The English Court of Appeal expressly applied the Bolam principle in considering

whether an architect had fully fulfilled his duty:

“Where there is a conflict as to whether he has discharged that duty, the courts approach

the matter upon the basis of considering whether there was evidence that at the time a

responsible body of architects would have taken the view that the way in which the subject

of enquiry had carried out his duties was an appropriate way of carrying out the duty,

and would not hold him guilty of negligence merely because there was a body of competent

professional opinion which held that he was at fault.”

75. In other words, unless there are special circumstances, provided an engineer acted

in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of

engineers, he will not be held negligent.

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76. Conversely, it was held in J. Jarvis & Sons Ltd. v Castle Wharf Development Ltd. [2001]

Lloyd’s Rep. P.N. 308, that in the absence of a request for advice, a professional

has a duty to offer unsolicited advice only when his reasonable perception of his

client’s skill and experience suggests that his client needs such advice.

77. In most cases, expert evidence from an equivalently qualified engineer is necessary

to prove negligence, except in cases where an engineer should have taken some

actions which were so blatantly necessary that no reasonable prudent engineer

would have failed to take.

(3) Causation and remoteness

78. In order to prove a defendant liable in negligence, apart from proving his breach

of duty, the plaintiff also needs to show that the defendant’s conduct causes the

plaintiff’s damage. In a personal injury claim, for example, the injury suffered by

the plaintiff might have been inflicted by different defendants or different causes.

However, not all of these are relevant for the purpose of proving the claim. Only

legally relevant causes which relates to the defendant’s breach of duty would be

relevant.

79. In order to establish such causation, the first hurdle is to prove a physical

connection between the defendant’s breach and the plaintiff’s damage – this is

often referred to as the ‘but for’ test. The question being posed is: ‘but for the

defendant’s breach of duty, would the plaintiff have suffered the damage in

question?’2 For this question, only if the answer is ‘no’ can it be said that the

defendant’s breach has caused the plaintiff’s damage.

80. For example, in Chan Kit Man (Administrator of the Estate of Fan Siu Kai, the Deceased)

v Rayable Consultants [1999] 2 HKLRD 577, a defective tower crane collapsed and

2 Put it simply, the question can also be read as “if the defendant did not breach his duty of care, would the plaintiff have suffered the damage in question?”

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injured the plaintiff, an employee of the defendant. The question to be asked by

the Court of Appeal was “but for the defendant’s failure to make inquiries or

inspections, would the deceased have suffered injuries and died?”

81. The Court of Appeal held the answer to be ‘yes’, and hence causation was not

proved. Although the defendant had failed to make thorough inquiries regarding

the history and condition of the crane, which had recently been imported into

Hong Kong by another company, it was unlikely that such inquiries would have

uncovered the defect in question.

82. Having passed the ‘but for’ test, the plaintiff must still satisfy the court that the

defendant’s breach was truly the effective cause of the plaintiff’s injury. Basically, the

plaintiff must be able to show that the defendant’s negligence was more than just

the creation of the opportunity for the plaintiff to suffer injury.

83. In Wong Sau Kam v Sham Yuk Fong (2001) HCPI 798 of 1998, the deceased, a

pedestrian, was killed when a canopy attached to a building owned by the

defendant suddenly collapsed. The defendant alleged that inadequate expansion

bolts, poor workmanship, lack of proper structural design and lack of

maintenance were not causes of the collapse, but merely provided the occasion for the

collapse.

84. However, the court held that all of these four causes are effective causes of the

collapse and hence, the defendant was liable.

85. Finally, after establishing causation, the last hurdle for the plaintiff is to show that

the kind of damage was foreseeable to the defendant. It must be pointed out,

however, that it is not necessary that the precise details leading up to the accident

should have been reasonably foreseeable: it is sufficient if the accident which

occurred is a type which should have been foreseeable by a reasonably careful

person.

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86. To illustrate, a famous rule on foreseeability is the ‘thin skull’ rule. This rule was

derived from the case of Smith v Leech Brain [1961] 3 All ER 1159, which means

that the defendant has to ‘take your victim as you find him’. Assuming that some

harm was reasonably foreseeable, this would allow recovery not only for harm that

was greater than expected due to a peculiar susceptibility of the plaintiff but also

for harm that was not of a reasonably foreseeable type.

87. In Smith case, Smith was employed by the defendant to remove articles from a

tank of molten metal. He had a pre-malignant condition due to having worked in

gas works for many years. He was burnt on one occasion as a result of inadequate

protection provided by his employer. He later contracted cancer from the burn

and died.

88. It was held that “the [test] is whether these defendants could reasonably foresee

the type of injury which he suffered, namely, the burn.” [emphasis added] So long

as the type of injury, i.e. the burn, could be foreseen by the defendant employer,

regardless of the special condition of the plaintiff, he would still be liable for his

injury.

89. So, where the claimant is suffering from a latent physical or psychological

predisposition to a particular injury or illness, and the harm inflicted by the

defendant has the effect of triggering off those latest predisposition of the plaintiff

which results in harm of a greater magnitude than that which the Defendant

should have foreseen, the defendant may still be responsible for the additional

unforeseeable damage that is caused by his negligence.

(4) Defence

90. Having considered the building blocks for the tort of negligence, the conduct of

the plaintiff must also be examined in considering whether his conduct has

contributed to the damage/injury thereby disentitling him to some or all of his

damages in the negligence claim.

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91. The defences available to a defendant are usually in one or more of the following

three categories:

(1) The plaintiff may have been contributorily negligent, so as to warrant an

apportionment of damages to be payable by the defendant.

(2) He may also be deprived altogether from recovering damages, because he

is found to have consented to or accepted the risk to which the defendant

has exposed to him. (volenti non fit injuria)

(3) The plaintiff may also be refused damages for public policy reasons,

because he had been willfully engaging in criminal conduct when injured by

the defendant’s negligence. (ex turpi causa non oritur actio)

Reference

l S. Furst and V. Ramsey, Keating on Building Contracts (7th Edition), Sweet & Maxwell

2001

l Rick Glofcheski, Tort Law in Hong Kong, Sweet & Maxwell Asia 2002

l R.M. Jackson and J.L. Powell, Jackson & Powell on Professional Negligence, Sweet &

Maxwell 2002

l W.V.H. Rogers, Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort (15th Edition), Sweet & Maxwell 1998

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