Business Law - Soo Clumsy V Tesko

A tort is a civil wrong other than a breach of contract as civil liability rising in two ways either breach of contract or tort being committed1. Here we look at tort as a tortious liability. This arises from the breach of duty primarily as fixed by law, a duty towards persons generally and its breach is repressible by an action for liquidated damages. Based on the facts given, the plaintiff will be the person who is injured or a victim in the incident and the defendant will be the person committing the crime or injury. Soo Clumsy was a 75 year old slipped on a yoghurt that was spilled on the Tesko’s floor where she suffered a broken ankle and sprained her back. She is now suing Tesko for the $85,000 incurred from the medical bill.

In this case, priority is given to negligence, in order to inaugurate the tort of negligence the claimant has to demonstrate three things which include that the defendant owed the claimant a duty of care, breached this duty and reasonably foreseeable type of damage was caused by the breach2.

The very first element would be the defendant owed the claimant a duty of care. In this very case, Soo Clumsy is the claimant whereas Tesko is the defendant. Here Soo Clumsy have to verify to the court, that the defendant, Tesko essentially owed to her duty of care. To support her argument the landmark case which is being used is (Donoghue v Stevenson) [1932] ac 562 (House of Lords). The claimant and her friend visited a cafe in Glosglow. The claimant’s friend ordered a “ginger beer float” for the claimant. This consisted of ice-cream in a glass, along with a bottle of ginger beer to pour over the top of it. The ginger beer arrived in and opaque stone bottle. Having poured some of the ginger beer over the ice cream, the claimant ate some of the ginger beer float. The claimant’s friend poured the remaining of the ginger beer into her own glass. A nauseating substance, which has been a decomposed snail, fell out the bottle. The claimant became ill. She might been poisoned by the ginger beer or made ill by the sight of the foreign body, or made ill by a combination of poisoning and the sight of the foreign body. The claimant sued the manufacturer of the ginger beer, Stevenson, arguing that he owed a duty of care to her. Stevenson argued that there was no case to answer, even if all the facts alleged by the claimant were true. The issue was appealed all the way to the House of Lords. Lord Atkins laid down the ‘Neighbour Principle’ as a held of this case. He stated that “…you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonable care to avoid acts or omission which you can reasonably foresee would likely to injure the person who are so closely and directly affected when I am directly affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omission, which are called in question…”. 3 A modern case which shows how this part of the test works is Langley v Dray (1998) where the claimant