TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction to REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE

2. REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE -the kind of damage must be
reasonable foreseeable
3. Remote and Proximate Damage
4. Test of Remoteness of Damage
a. The Test of Reasonable Foresight
b. The Test of directress
5. The Wagon Mound Case
6. REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE- Take your victim as you find him
7. REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE- a recent example of how a judge
should apply the principle of reasonable foreseeability
8. CONCLUSION
9. Bibliography

INTRODUCTION
emotness of damage relates to the requirement that the damage
must be of a foreseeable type.

It is the extent to which a

defendant is liable for the consequence of his wrongful act or

omission. In negligence claims, once the claimant has

established the defendant owes them a duty of care and is in breach of the duty
which has caused damage, they must also demonstrate that the damage was not
too remote. Remoteness of damage must also be applied to claims under the
occupier liability acts and also to nuisance claims.
Remoteness of damage is often viewed as an additional mechanism of
controlling tortuous liability. Not every loss will be recoverable in tort law.
Originally a defendant was liable for all losses which were a direct consequence
of the defendants breach of duty.
In tort there is no single test to determine whether or not damage is too remote.
In actions for negligence and other form of liability based on fault, the
defendant is responsible only for damage of the type he should have foreseen,
but if damage of that type is foreseeable, it is no defence that the extent of the
resulting damage is greater than could have been expected. In tort of strict
liability, the defendant may be liable even for unforeseeable damage. Thus the
keeper of an animal belonging to a dangerous species is liable for any damage it
causes, Weather foreseeable or not.

Rules Related to Remoteness of

Damage
Salmond lays down following points for judging whether consequences are too
remote or not.
First, the rule as to remoteness of damage applies not merely to wrongs of
negligence, but to wrongs of all type, whether wilful, negligent or absolute
liability. Even a wilful wrongdoer is not liable ad infinitum for all the
consequences which in fact flow from his wrongful act.
Second, consequences cannot be held too remote if it was actually intended by
the wrongdoer. The defendant was held responsible for all the consequences
which he actually desired and indented to inflict upon the plaintiff, however
remote may be the chain of causation by which he affected his purpose. In
Quinn v. Leathem, it was said that the intention to injury the plaintiff disposes of
any question as to remoteness of damage.
Third, the rule as to remoteness has no application to those cases in which the
defendant has wrongfully taken possession of or otherwise dealt with property
in such a manner that it is now at his risk. In such a case he is responsible for
any resulting loss, destruction or damage of that property, however remote that
consequence may be. The property is at his risk and he must either return it or
pay for it.
Finally, the question as to remoteness of damage must always be carefully
distinguished from the preliminary question whether the defendant has been
guilty of any wrongful act at all. It is only if this latter question is answered in
the affirmative that the first question arise at all.

REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE - the Kind of Damage

Must be Reasonable Foreseeable
The principle here is that as long as the type of damage is foreseeable, it does
not matter that the form it takes is unusual. A classic example of this is
Bradford V Robinson Rentals (1967). The claimant was required by his
employer to take an old van from Exeter to Bedford and collect a new one. The
weather was very cold and there was advice not to travel unless it was
necessary. The vans had no heater, and the windscreen kept freezing over, so
Bradford had to drive with the window open. The old vans radiator leaked and
had to be topped up regularly. Bradford suffered frostbite. It was foreseeable
that they would suffer some cold-related injury, so the defendants were liable
for his frostbite even though that is very unusual. The reason for the claimant
succeeding is that frostbite is merely an extreme form of injury from being cold.
Similarly, in Hughes V Lord Advocate (1963) the claimant succeeded. Two
boys took a paraffin warning lamp down an unattended open manhole. On
emerging from the hole, one of the boys knocked the lamp back into the hole,
causing an explosion, and suffered severe burns. Since the risk of injury by
burning was foreseeable, this extremely unlikely form of burning meant that
there was factual and legal causation and the boys claim succeeded. This is
another example of case law helping develop safety standards, as this method of
warning is no longer used.
However, in Doughty V Turner Asbestos (1964), the claimant was burned
when an asbestos lit was knocked into a vat of molten metal; the lid slid into the
liquid with no noticeable effect for a few minutes. However, a chemical reaction
then caused a violent eruption that scientific knowledge at the time did not
expect to happen. It could be foreseen that knocking things into the liquid might
cause a splash of molten metal, but this was an event of a wholly different type

from that which could have been foreseen. Therefore, the claim failed as the
result was not reasonably foreseeable
Worth noting is that causation and remoteness play a significant role between
violations of duty as provided by law and the damage in most cases, it is
assumed that causation serves as a factual or logical enquiry, but remoteness is
more of a legal enquiry which is founded more on policy evaluations on the
appropriate extent of the culprits liability. With regard to causation Lord
Hoffmann expressed that the rules used to address causal requirements are
subsets of the law and thus it would be possible to explain their nature on
principles of justice and fairness.
In the case involving Simmons v British Steel plc the claimant fell and hurt his
head. This led him to experience depression and damages to the skin. This was
not because of the original damage but rather due to anger. The courts decided
that the claimant was entitled to compensation both for the accident and for the
subsequent injuries.
In the case of Jackson and Royal Bank of Scotland Here, the courts noted that
the loss of orders in the future would not be considered as too remote.
Looking at the two cases above what should be of interest is foreseeability of
liability.
The assumption would be that despite tort causing damage that would not be all.
Indeed, violation of duty may lead to other events although the defendant may
not be held accountable for all even if it derives from the wrongdoing. In this
regard, remoteness aspect reduces the degree of the defendants liability.
Consider the following example:
X travels to station Y in London. The best means of transport would be by train.
At some point she finds that the train has been delayed outside the station thus
blocking the line. This makes X return home. In the afternoon, an intruder

burglarises her house and shoots his arm and leg. From a natural point of view
X would claim that her absence from work was because her train delayed. On
the contrary, it would not be natural for her to claim that the cause of her
accident was because her train was derailed. Of course, one would argue that
had she caught her train the incident would not have occurred since she would
not have returned home. The reader will concur that there arises serious doubts
on the extent to which the shooting links to the derailed train. In legal context, it
can be said that the act of shooting is too remote a consequence of the
derailment.
Similar to causation remoteness plays relevant role in torts where proof of
damage is fundamental; the same case applies where the claimant is pursuing
reimbursement for particular damages. But, the test on remoteness of the
outcomes is not developed in the same manner in all torts. Therefore, the reader
prior to passing judgment on tort involving damage or loss must take into
consideration the test of remoteness. The study will be demonstrating how the
test for remoteness may be established in acts of negligence. Over decades now,
the commonly acceptable test has been the degree to which the defendant would
be held liable for damage but on condition that there was a foreseeable
consequence of the violation of duty. This was decided by the Privy Council in
their decision involving the case of The Wagon Mound.

Tests to Determine Remoteness of

Damage

REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE- Take Your Victim as

You Find Him
This is similar to the concept in criminal law. A persons liability in negligence
is not extinguished or lessened because the claimant had a pre-existing
condition that made the injuries worse. A case that illustrates the principle is
Smith V Leech Brain (1962). In that case, the claimant suffered a very minor
splash by molten metal that caused a burn on his face. The burn triggered his
pre-existing cancerous condition, and the claimant developed cancer. Some
minor injury at lease was foreseeable. His extreme reaction was a result of his
condition and as the principle is that you take a person as you find them, the
claim succeeded.

REMOTNESS OF DAMAGE- A Recent Example of

How a Judge Should Apply the Principle of
Reasonable Foreseeability
In Gabriel V Kirklees Metropolitan Council (2004), the claimant was six
years old. He was walking past a building site owned by the local council in
Huddersfield, when he was hit in the eye by mud thrown by children playing on
the site. The site was not fenced at that time. It was decided that the correct way
to decide whether the council were liable in negligence involved the following
tests:
Whether it was reasonably foreseeable that children would go onto the
construction site.
Whether, whilst on the construction site, it was reasonably foreseeable
that the children would play there.

 Whether it was reasonably foreseeable that, in playing on the site, they

would throw whatever came to hand.
Whether in playing with material on site it was reasonably foreseeable
that they might cause injury to those passing by on the pavement

CONCLUSION
Damage caused by the defendant's breach has two principles that equate to
factual and legal causation. Factual causation is the but for test. Legal
causation in the idea of remoteness of damage, which has a test of reasonably
Foreseeability. The Reality is that difficult question concerning the remoteness
of damage does not often arise in negligence claims. Such cases were not
particularly common prior to the decision in SAAMCO. However, with the
greater focus on determining the scope of the duty and whether it encompasses
the kind of damage suffered by the plaintiff will usually be resolved by
reference to a careful analysing of the nature and scope of the duty they owed.
Nevertheless, remoteness still exists as a separate and distinct inquiry, and it
seems clear that the test for remoteness remains that of reasonable foreseeability
of damage of a particular Kind. There is undoubtedly an overlap between the
question of whether the scope of the duty of care encompasses damage of that
particular kind, and the question of inquiries will be complete. However, the
separate inquiry into remoteness does allow the court to make a more focussed
and particular examination of the actual loss suffered by the plaintiff. Just
because the court has found that in general terms at least, a duty of care was
owed to prevent a particular kind of loss, not necessarily follow that the actual
loss suffered by the plaintiff is one which was itself reasonable foreseeable.
An illustration of how remoteness may continue to operate can be found by
returning again to some of the leading decision in New Zealand. In the
Geothermal case, the scope of the duty clearly encompassed physical damage to
the neighbouring property owners, and likely consequential economic loss. If
there had not been specific knowledge by the defendant of the particular
financial circumstance of the plaintiff, there would have been a clear issue as to

remoteness of the super profit that could have been earned from using the
proceeds of the first crop of roses to establish further greenhouses. It is difficult
to see how that question would have been answered by reference to the scope of
the duty of care.
Likewise, if we consider a case such as Scott vs. Wilson, if the court had found
that the tax accountants were also offering more general investment advice, a
separate remoteness inquiry would still be needed to consider whether the
particular investment losses claimed by the plaintiff in that case were ones
which could have been reasonable foreseen. Again, if the court had determined
that a duty was owned in respect of general investment advice, there seems no
reason why the usual rules as to foreseeability and remoteness should not then
have governed the extent of that liability.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books referred:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Cooke R., Architects, Engineers and the Law. (Federation Press, 2001)
Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd [2002] UKHL 22 at [54]
The law of torts by R.K.Bangia
The law of torts by Ratanlal and Dheerajlal

Website referred:
1. www.shortlandchamber.com
2. www.slideshare.com