Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock & Engineering Co Ltd (The Wagon Mound No 1)
[1961] AC 388
Ratio Decidendi
The test for remoteness of damage in negligence is reasonable foreseeability, not directness. A defendant is only liable for damage of a kind that a reasonable person would have foreseen as a consequence of their negligence.
Fakty
The Wagon Mound, an oil tanker, carelessly discharged furnace oil into Sydney Harbour. The oil spread to Morts Dock's wharf, where welding was being carried out. The oil was ignited by molten metal from the welding and caused a fire that destroyed the wharf. The trial judge found that the defendants did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that furnace oil on water could be set alight.
Podsumowanie orzeczenia
The Privy Council held that the defendants were not liable for the fire damage. Viscount Simonds held that the direct consequence test from Re Polemis [1921] was wrong and should no longer be followed. The correct test for remoteness in negligence is reasonable foreseeability: a tortfeasor is liable only for damage of a kind that was reasonably foreseeable, even if the precise extent of damage was not.
Kluczowe cytaty
"It does not seem consonant with current ideas of justice or morality that for an act of negligence, however slight or venial, which results in some trivial foreseeable damage the actor should be liable for all consequences however unforeseeable and however grave."
— Viscount Simonds
Późniejsze zastosowanie
The foreseeability test is now the established test for remoteness in negligence throughout the common law world.
The 'egg-shell skull' rule survived: take your victim as you find them once damage of a foreseeable type has occurred (Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963]).