Tort of Negligence: Duty of Care and Breach

Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
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Author Note:

1CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Introduction:
In this case study, the tort of negligence is being considered in the light of duty of care. In
order to prove that negligence has occurred, the claimant has to prove that the defendant has a
duty of care towards the claimant and he had caused breach of it.
ANSWER 1:
Issue:
Whether Ravi owes a duty of care to Archana at the time of the incident?
Law/rule:
In the tort of negligence, duty of care means the situations and relations which are
recognized by law resulting into legal duty to take care (Stickley 2016). A failure to take such
care can make the defendant liable to pay damages to the party who got injured or was suffering
loss due to the breach of such care. Hence in order to claim damages for the loss or injury he
suffered the claimant shall prove that the defendant has for the plaintiff a duty of care. The
presence of the duty of care depends on a number of facts like the type of loss and different legal
tests are there for different losses by applying which whether there lies a duty of care of the
defendant towards the plaintiff can be determined.
In order to establish the presence of duty of care in case of any personal injury the
decision given by Lord Atkin in the case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 can be
referred. The test considered here is called the neighbour test. In this case, Mrs Donoghue went
to a café along with her friend. Her friend bought for her a ginger beer bottle and an ice cream.
The beer bottle was opaque and hence its contents could not be seen from outside. She poured

2CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
some of the drinks on the ice cream and discovered that a decomposed snail came out along with
the drink. Mrs Donoghue suffered some personal injury because of the consumption such drink
and she brought a claim against the manufacturer of the ginger beer. She succeeded in her claim
against the manufacturer. This case is the landmark case that established the new law of
negligence and this became the principle of neighborhood test. Lord Atkin in this case held that
one must take assure to take reasonable care for avoiding acts or its omissions which can be seen
reasonably that may result into injury or loss to the neighbor.
While considering the application of the neighbor test, the presence of duty of care can be
proved by fulfilling two criteria, the first being the reasonable foresight of harm and the second
one is the relation of proximity between the loss or injury and its cause.
Application:
In the given case, it is seen that Ravi was the manager of the McDonald store and when
the incident happened he was on duty there. Being the manager he had the duty of taking care of
his customers by providing them with proper security and safety. On the day of Archana’s
birthday, he was on duty and since one of the staffs fell sick, he was helping in the counter
cooking and also was tending the bar. Dara is another staff in the store.
Someone had vomited near the main door. Dara had the duty to clean the mess and he
said he had cleaned it up. Ravi being the manager was about to check whether it was cleaned it
up or not. But he totally forgot about it. Hence it is seen that Dara had the main duty towards
Archana as he was assigned to clean it up. However, being the manager, Ravi too had a duty to
ensure that everything was done accordingly. He forgot to check that the mess was cleaned
properly or not. Moreover, as per the forensic investigation, it is also found that someone had