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Case analysis brief Donoghue v Stevenson

An analysis brief of the case Donoghue v Stevenson, achieved first class
Course

Legal Writing

34 Documents
Students shared 34 documents in this course
Academic year: 2020/2021
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University of Salford

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The case of Donoghue v Stevenson 1 is a significant case, because of the fact that it

established the law of tort, negligence, and even set an obligation for businesses to

have a duty of care towards their customers. Therefore, this case does still have a

positive, or neutral judicial consideration, which means that the application of using this

case as law is still valid. The court in which the case had taken place in was the House

of Lords, and the parties were Mrs. Mary Donoghue, who was the appellant, against

Stevenson, who was the defendant. The facts of the case are as follows, on 26th August

1928, Donoghue was at Wellmeadow Café in Paisley, along with her friend. Donoghue’s

friend ordered for her a ginger beer, which could be suitable for an ice cream.

Donoghue then consumed about half of her drink, which was made of dark opaque

glass, so the contents of the ginger beer were not clearly visible. However, when she

poured the remainder of the drink into a tumbler , the decomposed remains of a snail

floated out of the bottle which allegedly caused her a shock and severe gastro-enteritis.

Mrs Donoghue was not able to claim any damages through a breach of warranty of a

contract, because she was not a party to any contract. Therefore, she filed charges

against the manufacturer of the ginger beer, who was Stevenson.

“The law applicable is the common law, and, though its principles are capable of

application to meet new conditions not contemplated when the law was laid down, yet

themselves they cannot be changed nor can additions be made to them because any

particular meritorious case seems outside their ambit.” 2 Since the law applicable is

common law, cases will be mentioned in this essay to display these precedents. Firstly,

in Dominion Natural Gas Co Ltd v Collins 3 , the defendants had constructed a gas

1 Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL).

2 ibid 567.

3 Dominion Natural Gas Co Ltd v Collins [1909] AC 640 (PC).

apparatus on the grounds of a railway company in order to provide natural gas. They

had installed a pressure regulator to manage the pressure, and their personnel had

negligently made an escape-valve release into the building rather than into the outside

air. An explosion on the premises harmed the plaintiffs, who were railway workers. The

decision of the appeal was held, with Lord Dunedin stating:

“there is a peculiar duty to take precaution imposed upon those who send forth or install

such articles when it is necessarily the case that other parties will come within their

proximity. The duty being to take precaution, it is no excuse to say that the accident

would not have happened unless some other agency than that of the defendant had

intermeddled with the matter.” 4

This omits the fact that “peculiar duty” was supposed to take place, but due to the

ginger beer not being a dangerous article, the duty shouldn’t be obliged according to

Lord Buckmaster, which is stipulated by his statement :

“There can be no special duty attaching to the manufacture of food apart from that

implied by contract or imposed by statute. If such a duty exists, it seems to me it must

cover the construction of every article, and I cannot see any reason why it should not

apply to the construction of a house.” 5

Another case that was approved and cited by Donoghue v Stevenson 6 was George v

Skivington 7 ,which was the nearest case to the present. The woman was harmed as a

result of a hair wash acquired under a contract of sale with the husband. The cause of

4 ibid 646.

5 (n1) 577.

6 (n1).

7 George v Skivington [1869] LR 5 (Ex).

“whenever one person is by circumstances placed in such a position with regard to

another, that every one of ordinary sense who did think would at once recognise that if

he did not use ordinary care and skill in his own conduct with regard to those

circumstances he would cause danger of injury to the person or property of the other, a

duty arises to use ordinary care and skill to avoid such danger” 13

The majority of the judgement was lead by Lord Atkin. In which he thought that there

were no statements in previous cases that are related to the duty of care outside of a

contract. He believed that the law should not only be categorized into a certain class of

cases, but instead to develop a general principle that could be applied to all the cases

that are common to each other. He found the neighbour principle, which is “You must

take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee

would be likely to injure your neighbour.” 14 Lord Atkin used all forms of reasoning to

analyse the case, he used inductive reasoning when he established the neighbour

principle by taking a general premise and deducing from this rule that there is duty of

care. Additionally, he picked different parts of cases which he considered to be similar to

the case of Donoghue v Stevenson 15 , and excludes the parts which he thinks that are

not relevant. On the other hand, Lord Buckmaster lead the main dissenting judgement.

He argued that the duty of care should not exist outside of a contract, because imposing

this duty to the manufacturers would make them vulnerable to claims from a very wide

group of people. In addition, he used a clear deductive reasoning to show that there is

no duty of care outside a contract, while there are exceptions to this rule. However, this

13 Ibid 50.

14 (n1) 580.

15 (n1)

case does not fall into these exceptions. Therefore, the case will use the pre-existing

general rule, which is no duty of care outside a contract.

The ratio decidendi of the case was stated by Lord Atkin:

“a manufacturer of products, which he sells in such a form as to show that he intends

them to reach the ultimate consumer in the form in which they left him with no

reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, and with the knowledge that the

absence of reasonable care in the preparation or putting up of the products will result in

an injury to the consumer's life or property, owes a duty to the consumer to take that

reasonable care.” 16

To conclude, the decision of the case was a majority of 3 to 2 in favour Donoghue, with

Lord Atkin the leading judgement and Lord Buckmaster dissenting judgment.

16 (n1) 599.

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Case analysis brief Donoghue v Stevenson

Course: Legal Writing

34 Documents
Students shared 34 documents in this course

University: Philippine Normal University - North Luzon

Was this document helpful?
The case of Donoghue v Stevenson1 is a significant case, because of the fact that it
established the law of tort, negligence, and even set an obligation for businesses to
have a duty of care towards their customers. Therefore, this case does still have a
positive, or neutral judicial consideration, which means that the application of using this
case as law is still valid. The court in which the case had taken place in was the House
of Lords, and the parties were Mrs. Mary Donoghue, who was the appellant, against
Stevenson, who was the defendant. The facts of the case are as follows, on 26th August
1928, Donoghue was at Wellmeadow Café in Paisley, along with her friend. Donoghue’s
friend ordered for her a ginger beer, which could be suitable for an ice cream.
Donoghue then consumed about half of her drink, which was made of dark opaque
glass, so the contents of the ginger beer were not clearly visible. However, when she
poured the remainder of the drink into a tumbler , the decomposed remains of a snail
floated out of the bottle which allegedly caused her a shock and severe gastro-enteritis.
Mrs Donoghue was not able to claim any damages through a breach of warranty of a
contract, because she was not a party to any contract. Therefore, she filed charges
against the manufacturer of the ginger beer, who was Stevenson.
“The law applicable is the common law, and, though its principles are capable of
application to meet new conditions not contemplated when the law was laid down, yet
themselves they cannot be changed nor can additions be made to them because any
particular meritorious case seems outside their ambit.”2 Since the law applicable is
common law, cases will be mentioned in this essay to display these precedents. Firstly,
in Dominion Natural Gas Co Ltd v Collins3 , the defendants had constructed a gas
1 Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL).
2 ibid 567.
3 Dominion Natural Gas Co Ltd v Collins [1909] AC 640 (PC).

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