Dr.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY

LAW OF TORTS PROJECT

PROJECT

On

DONOGHUE v. STEVENSON CASE ANALYSIS.

Submitted to Submitted by

Ms. Ankita Yadav Jahanvi Gautam

Asstt. Prof. of Law Enrollment No. 061
1ST Year (2nd Semester)
TABLE OF CONTENT.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
After all these days of hard work, it is necessary to express my gratitude to those who in one way
or another contributed and extended their support and valuable assistance in the preparation and
completion of this academic work.
I take immense pleasure in expressing my gratitude to my subject supervisor, MS. ANKITA
YADAV, for all I have learned from her and for her continuous help and support in all stages of
this project work. I would also like to thank her for being an open person to ideas and for
encouraging and helping me to shape my interest and ideas. She has been a tremendous mentor
for me. I owe special debt and profound gratitude to her grateful guidance, affection, friendly
discussions, suggestions and inspiration. Your advice on both research as well as on my career
have been priceless.
I express my sincere gratitude to Library staff of the RMLNLU, who provided the data regarding
my research and gave valuable time from their busy schedule.
I would also like to thank all of my friends who supported me in writing and incented me to
strive towards my goal.
A special thanks to my family. My gratefulness to my parents, above all, is beyond words.
Your prayer for me was what sustained me thus far. It is because of them that I could reach
where I am.
My parents, brother and sister have given me their unequivocal support throughout, as always,
for which my mere expression of thanks likewise does not suffice.

JAHANVI GAUTAM
Rollno.180101061, Semi-II
INTRODUCTION.
Donoghue v. Stevenson, also known as the ‘snail in the bottle case’, is a significant case in
Western law. The ruling in this case established the civil law tort of negligence and obliged
businesses to observe a duty of care towards their customers1. The events of the case took place
in Paisley, Scotland in 1928. While attending a store, Ms May Donoghue was given a bottle of
ginger beer, purchased for her by a friend. The bottle was later discovered to contain a
decomposing snail. Since the bottle was not made of clear glass, Donoghue consumed most of its
contents before she became aware of the snail. She later fell ill and a physician diagnosed her
with gastroenteritis. Donoghue subsequently took legal action against Mr David Stevenson, the
manufacturer of the ginger beer. She lodged a writ in the Court of Sessions, Scotland’s highest
civil court, seeking £500 damages.
Donoghue could not sue Stevenson for breach of contract because she had not purchased the
drink herself. Instead, Donoghue’s lawyers claimed that Stevenson had breached a duty of care
to his consumers and caused injury through negligence. At the time, this area of civil law was
largely untested. Stevenson’s lawyers challenged Donoghue’s action on the basis that no
precedents existed for such a claim. They referred to an earlier action by Donoghue’s lawyer,
Mullen v. AG Barr2, where a dead mouse was found in a bottle of soft drink judges dismissed
this action due to a lack of precedent. Donoghue’s initial action failed but she was granted leave
to appeal to the House of Lords which, at the time, had the judicial authority to hear appellate
cases. The leading judgement, delivered by Lord Atkin in 1932, established that Stevenson was
responsible for the well being of individuals who consumed his products, given that they could
not be inspected. The case was returned to the original court. Stevenson died before the case was
finalised and Donoghue was awarded a reduced amount of damages from his estate.
The outcomes of Donoghue v. Stevenson established several legal principles and precedents:

Negligence. Firstly, the House of Lords ruling affirmed that negligence is a tort. A plaintiff can
take civil action against a respondent if the respondent’s negligence causes the plaintiff injury or
loss of property. Previously, the plaintiff had to demonstrate some contractual arrangement for
negligence to be proven, such as the sale of an item or an agreement to provide a service. Since

1
[1932] AC 562, HL
2
1929, S.C. 461
Donoghue had not purchased the drink, she could prove no contractual arrangement with
Stevenson – yet Lord Atkin’s judgement established that Stevenson was still responsible for the
integrity of his product. Negligence as a tort was also seen in the case of Rylands v Fletcher3
where,the defendants employed independent contractors to construct a reservoir on their land.
The contractors found disused mines when digging but failed to seal them properly. They filled
the reservoir with water. As a result, water flooded through the mine shafts into the plaintiff’s
mines on the adjoining property. The plaintiff secured a verdict at Liverpool Assizes. The Court
of Exchequer Chamber held the defendant liable and the House of Lords affirmed their decision.

Duty of care. Secondly, the case established that manufacturers have a duty of care to the end
consumers or users of their products. According to Lord Atkin’s ratio decendi, a manufacturer of
products, which he sells… to reach the ultimate consumer in the form in which they left him…
owes a duty to the consumer to take reasonable care. This precedent has evolved and now forms
the basis of laws that protect consumers from contaminated or faulty goods. These protections
began as common law but many have since been codified in legislation, such as the Trade
Practices Act, Commonwealth, 1974). Caparo Industries plc v Dickman4 is a landmark case
which has created the tripartite test in establishing duty of care5. This test departs from
Donoghue v Stevenson and the Wilberforce test laid down in Anns v Merton London Borough
Council6 which starts from the assumption that there is a duty of care and that harm was
foreseeable unless there is good reason to judge otherwise7. Whereas Caparo starts from the
assumption no duty is owed unless the criteria of the three stage test is satisfied. These criteria
are: Foreseeability, Proximity and whether it is fair, just and reasonable to impose such a duty.
Yet this approach has been critiqued by over complicating “neighbour” principle in Donoghue.
Moreover, there is an abundance of case law which moves away from the Caparo test altogether.

Neighbour principle. Thirdly, the Donoghue v. Stevenson case produced Lord Atkin’s
controversial neighbour principle, which extended the tort of negligence beyond the tortfeasor
and the immediate party. It raised the question of exactly which people might be affected by

3
(1868) LR 3 HL 330
4
[1990] UKHL 2
5
Mark Godfrey, `The categories of negligence revisited: Harrison v West of Scotland Kart Club & Noble v De
Boer`. 2005 2 SLT 9
6
1978 AC 728
7
Kirsty Horsey & Erica Rackley , Tort Law (4th edn, OUP Oxford 2015) 60
negligent actions. In Donoghue’s case, she had not purchased the ginger beer but had received it
as a gift she was a “neighbour” rather than a party to the contract. Atkin said of this principle:
You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee
would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law, is my neighbour? The answer seems
to be persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought to have them in
mind when I am considering these acts or omissions.
MATERIAL FACTS.

On Sunday 28th August 1928 Donoghue went with a friend to Paisley at Well meadow Café.
The friend ordered a pear and ice for herself and a Scotsman ice cream float, a mix of ice cream
and a bottle of ginger beer for Donoghue. The owner of the café brought a tumbler of ice cream
and poured ginger beer on it from a brown and opaque bottle labeled, D. Stevenson, Glen Lane,
Paisley.c Donoghue drank some of the ice cream float. When her friend went to pour the rest of
the ginger beer, a decomposing snail also poured out of it. Mrs. Donoghue claimed she felt ill
from the sight and also complained of abdominal pains. She consulted a doctor and was admitted
for emergency treatment at glasgow royal infirmary where she was diagnosed with severe
gastritis and shock. The ginger beer had been manufactured by David Stevenson, who ran a
company producing both ginger beer and lemonade at 11 and 12 Glen Lane, Paisley, less than a
mile away from the Well meadow Café. Donoghue subsequently contacted and instructed Walter
Leech man, a local solicitor and city councilor whose firm had acted for the claimants in a
factually similar case less than three weeks earlier. She lodged a writ in the court of sessions,
Scotland’s highest civil court, seeking 500 pounds damages.

LEGAL ISSUES.
The outcomes of Donoghue Stevenson established several legal principles and precedents:
Duty of Care: Duty of care refers to the circumstances and relationships which the law
recognises as giving rise to legal duty to take care. Failure to take such care can result in the
defendant being liable to pay damages to an injured party or a party that suffers loss as a result of
breach. The claimant must also be able to show a duty of care imposed by the law in which the
defendant has breached. The existence of a duty of care for personal injury and property damage
was developed by Lord Atkins neighbor test.There are three requirements for establishing duty
of care according to Lord Atkins:
(a) Reasonable foresight of harm.
(b) A relationship of proximity.
(c) It must be “fair, just and reasonable” to impose liability.
However it is not a requirement for duty of care to be defined by law but it will always develop
in the jurisprudence of Common law.
a)Reasonable foresight of harm
In the case of Topp v London Country bus8 the defendant bus company left a minibus unlocked
and the keys left in the ignition. The driver who was expected to pick the bus did not come for
his shift so thieves stole the bus and drove it away. Unfortunately the bus knocked a woman off
her bicycle and killed her. When her husband brought an action for damages the court held that
the bus company did not owe a duty of care for the acts of the third party because it was not
foreseeable that thieves would take the bus and run a woman off her bicycle. However in
Donoghue v Stevenson, Stevenson had a duty of care to ensure that snails did not get into the
bottles of ginger beer and he had breached this duty by failing to provide a system to clean
bottles effectively given that ginger beer was intended for human consumption. he cleaning
system was found very ineffective as there were allegations that the bottles were being left in
places where snails would easily access and evidence of snail trails had been found there.
b) A relationship of proximity
In the case of Bourhill v young9 the claimant who was a pregnant fishwife upon disembarking
from a tram went to pick her basket at the storage area. She heard a motorcyclist crash 03ft away
and the cyclist was killed by the impact. When bourhill walked past the scene of the incident, she
saw blood on the road. She suffered shock and later gave birth to a stillborn child. She brought a
claim against the defendants estate and it was held that no duty of care was owed to the claimant
as there was no sufficient proximity between the claimant and the defendant where the accident
occurred.
c) It must be “fair, just and reasonable” to impose liability.
According to Lord Atkins’ ratio decendi, “manufacturer of products, which he sells….owes duty
to the consumer to take reasonable care.” This precedent has evolved and now forms the basis of
laws that protect consumers from contaminated or faulty goods. These protections began as
common law but many have since been codified in Trade Practices Act (Commonwealth, 1974
).

Negligence: Negligence is failure to exercise the expected ethical care in specified circumstances

8
[1993] 1 WLR 976
9
[1943] AC 92
resulting to damage or injury to another party. It also means conduct that falls below the
standards of behavior established by law to protect others against unreasonable harm. In order to
prove negligence, a plaintiff must prove that:-
i) the defendant had a duty to the plaintiff
ii) the defendant breached the duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct.
iii) that the plaintiff was harmed or damaged and
iv) the defendant’s negligent conduct was the cause of harm.
One of the most important concepts of negligence is the law of “reasonable person” which
provides the standard by which a person’s conduct is judged. A reasonable man is also deemed a
wholly impersonal fiction to which no specific characteristic of the accused should be attributed.
in the case of Healthcare at home limited v The Common Services10, this cases follows from the
legal issue arising in the topic of the reasonable man, as a means of describing a standard applied
by court, that it would be misconceived for a party to seek to lead evidence from actual
passengers on the Clapham omnibus as to how they would have acted in certain circumstance or
what they would have foreseen to establish how the reasonable man would acted or what he
would have foreseen. Even if the party offered to prove that his witness were reasonable men, the
evidence would be beside the point. The reasonable man’s behavior is not established by the
evidence of any witnesses. it is established by the application of a legal standard by the court.
The court may require to be informed of the evidence existing in the circumstances which bear
the standard of the reasonable man in any particular case but it then lies upon the court to
determine the outcome.
Neighbour Principle
Thirdly, the Donoghue v. Stevenson case produced the lord Atkins principle called the
“neighbour principle” which extended the tort of negligence beyond the immediate party to
anyone that could be referred to as a neighbor. it raised the question of exactly which people
might be affected by negligent actions. in Donoghues case she had not purchased the ginger beer
but had received it as a gift she was a neighbor rather than a party to the contract. Atkins said of
this principle: “You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions”. This further raised the
question then “who would be referred to as a neighbour?” The answer was established to be the
persons who are directly affected by my act that i ought to have them in mind when i am

10
[2014] UKSC 49
considering any acts or omissions.

Decision Of The Court. The facts of Donoghue v. Stevenson themselves are ordinary but the
factual background established when the case reached the house of lords ensured its place in the
history of time. It was held that Donoghue had no contractual relationship with the seller as she
is not the one who had purchased the ginger beer. However her friend who had placed the order
had a contract with the seller yet she had not suffered any injury. Therefore the claim against
Minghella was abandoned on 19th November due to his lack of contractual relationship with
Donoghue and also his inability to examine the contents of the dark glass bottle.
The case was also heard by lord Moncrieff in the Outer House on 27th June 1930 and his
judgment he held that there should be liability for negligent preparation of food. It was held that
if anyone is in the production of food or drinks that are to be taken by the final consumer would
not plead ignorance of foreseeable danger associated with the products and as a consequence of
any act or omission in the process of manufacturing. Lord Moncrieff further states that
production of such good imposes a duty of care on the part of the manufacturer. The lords held
that Stevenson, the manufacturer of the ginger beer was negligent on his part and therefore was
liable for any damages caused due to his negligent behavior. Therefore this case rests solely on
grounds of tort on negligence and the matter was to be decided by the English law courts whose
decisions would be binding even to Scots law. The case became a foundational decision in Scots
delict law and English tort law and is till date referred to as the “paisley snail case” or “the snail
in the bottle case”.

The Neighbour Principle

This principle states that ‘you must not injure your neighbour’. This principle is that one must
take reasonable care to avoid any acts or omissions that could be foreseen to injure a neighbor.
The neighbor principle was enunciated by Lord Atkins in the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson and
it provides an adequate basis of the law of negligence. This principle was articulated to
determine boundaries of duty of care and to what extent a claimant would be owed a duty of care
by the defendant. A neighbor is defined as anyone closely or directly affected by the cause of our
acts. The neighbor principle opens doors to claims in negligence for injured parties by
classifying the type of people duty of care may be owed to. This class of people includes people
close or direct enough to be affected by the allegedly negligent acts. The alleged tortfeasor must
!ut the neighbor into contemplation before acting as he or she did. In Home Office v Dorset
Yacht Co. Ltd11. Some young offenders were doing some supervised work on Brown Sea Island.
One night the supervising officers left for the evening leaving the boys unsupervised the whole
night. Seven of the boys escaped and stole a boat which collided with a Yacht owned by the
claimant. It was held that the Home Office owed a duty of care for being absent for supervisor
duties. They were in a position to control the 3rd party who caused the damage and it was
foreseeable that harm would result from their inaction. This principle does not throw the
floodgates to unlimited claims because the tortfeasor will not be held liable of the duty of care if
the claimant is not close enough. This was well demonstrated in ‘Caparo’s test’ in the case of
Caparo Industries plc v Dickman12, where Caparo industries purchased shares in Fidelity Plc in
reliance of the accounts which stated that the company had made a profit while they had actually
made a loss. Caparo brought an action against the auditors claiming they were negligent in
certifying the accounts. It was held that no duty of care was owed. There was not sufficient
relationship between Caparo and the auditors since the auditors were not aware of the existence
of neither Caparo nor the purpose for which the accounts were being used by them. According to
Lord Bridge, in addition to foreseeing damage there are certain characteristics that should exist
between the party owing duty of care and the party to which duty of care is owed. This
characteristic is defined to as “neighborhood” or “proximity”. The court should be able to
consider the situation fair, just and reasonable. In regards to “The parable of the Good
Samaritan”.

11
[1970] AC 1004
12
[1990] UKHL 2
CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON DONOGHUE V. STEVENSON.
In regard to the case stated above and the entire common law system which didn't take
precautions in regard to the rule in regarding the privity of contracts and negligence, the case
above can be said to have laid a significant change in the entire legal system in which a party
owed a duty of care to a third party even though they had not formerly gotten into a contract
worth such persons. It is true that common law judges may claim that they already know the law
and are waiting for cases to be brought to them so that they solve the cases in regard to it.This
purely may seems to be true or even not to be since in regard to the case above it took a long
time before the case was decided, that even the plaintiff ended up being a pauper before she won
the case.The neighbor principle was then founded in this case that instituted a duty of care to a
third party in reasonable circumstances, this also beat the privity of contracts in which a party for
example could sue another even though they had not contracted but was affected by the negligent
actions of another eg. a manufacturer being sued by final purchaser of a product.
The entire common law system is not only very complacent but also can be a cause of grave
consequences to the individuals for example in a suit .This regards especially to cases regarding
private law.Issues regarding unjust enrichment may take many years before they are resolved by
the courts due the doctrine of precedents the courts use as persuasive authority and which cannot
be overruled in an arbitrary manner in fact precedents can only be overruled by higher
courts.This is seen in Fibrosa's case where the court held that in the case of frustration of
contracts the losses remain where they fall in regard to the circumstances hereby, this means that
there is unjust enrichment since one of the parties had payed the other a substantial amount.
It took long before the court overruled the case in regard to imposition of restitutionary measures
even though based on a precedent.
With regard to this issues,the contrary happens in civil law jurisdictions whereby the court
follows the laid down rules in a civil code to deal with these issues.Common law should thus try
and borrow from civil law jurisdictions in matters relating to contract and tort.
On the other hand it is worth noting that common law has a lot to appreciate since we do not
have to rely on the legislature to pass laws so as to deal with certain issues.Common law judges
already know the law!They already know it!It is not in the same circumstance that we ought to
be in as civil law judges are to wait for the legislature to pass laws so that they can apply the law
in question.We are therefore more privileged to apply the law irrespective whether the legislature
has passed such law or not.

CONCLUSION
To conclude, some scholars express the view that the importance of the case of Donoghue v
Stevenson was overrated both by its supporters and critics. However, in my opinion, even though
the importance of the decision of this case nowadays is reduced, the case has a lasting effect, the
significance of which lies not only in the established principles, but in the ideas that changed the
law of tort forever, and in particular the law of negligence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Introduction to the law of torts, Avtar singh and Harpreet Kaur.
2. The Law of Torts, Lexis Nexis,
3. Murphy- Street on Torts
4. Law of torts- B. M. Gandhi.