Donoghue v Stevenson

Facts

On an August evening in 1928, May Donoghue went to the Wellmeadow Café in Paisley with a friend. The friend bought her a ginger beer, made by David Stevenson, in an opaque bottle. Mrs Donoghue drank some of it. When her friend poured the rest into her glass, the decomposed remains of a snail allegedly floated out. Mrs Donoghue said she suffered shock and gastroenteritis.

Because her friend had bought the drink, Mrs Donoghue had no contract with the café owner. She sued the manufacturer in negligence.

Issue

The case reached the House of Lords on a preliminary point of law: assuming the facts she alleged were true, did the manufacturer owe Mrs Donoghue a duty of care? At the time, the general view was that a manufacturer owed duties only to the people it had contracts with, apart from a few special categories such as dangerous goods.

Decision

By a majority of three to two (Lords Atkin, Thankerton and Macmillan; Lords Buckland and Tomlin dissenting), the House of Lords held that a duty of care was owed. Mrs Donoghue had a cause of action if she could prove her facts.

Reasoning

Lord Atkin's neighbour principle. Lord Atkin looked for a general principle behind the scattered cases where duties had been recognised. He found it in the idea that you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. He then asked, in a now famous line, "who, then, in law is my neighbour?" His answer: people so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought reasonably to have them in contemplation when you act.

The narrower rule. Lord Atkin also stated a more specific proposition. A manufacturer of products, which it sells in a form showing that it intends them to reach the ultimate consumer in the form they left it, with no reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, owes the consumer a duty to take reasonable care in preparing the product, where it knows that a lack of care will result in injury.

The opaque bottle was crucial: neither the café owner nor Mrs Donoghue could have spotted the snail.

Rejecting the privity argument. The majority rejected the argument that, because the manufacturer's only contract was with the retailer, it owed no duty to anyone else. A contract with one person doesn't prevent a duty in tort being owed to another.

Why it matters

Donoghue v Stevenson is the foundation of the modern law of negligence. Before it, negligence was a collection of special duties. After it, negligence became a general tort based on reasonable foreseeability and proximity.

The neighbour principle was later developed, and then narrowed:

• Grant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] AC 85 applied the principle to underwear containing an irritant chemical.
• Anns v Merton LBC [1978] AC 728 treated the principle as a near-universal test, before Murphy v Brentwood DC [1991] 1 AC 398 overruled Anns.
• Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605 and Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2018] UKSC 4 now shape how duty is approached.

Product liability today is also governed by Part I of the Consumer Protection Act 1987, which imposes strict liability for defective products alongside negligence.

How it comes up in exams

In a negligence problem, Donoghue is your authority that a duty of care can exist without a contract, and for the role of reasonable foreseeability and proximity. For physical injury caused by a positive act, such as a defective product, the duty is well established: cite Donoghue and move on to breach, causation and remoteness.

Don't spend time applying the neighbour principle as a test in itself. Modern courts apply established categories and develop new ones incrementally, as explained in Robinson.

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