LAKHMI CHAND INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF LEGAL STUDIES

ACADEMIC PROJECT 2018-19

SUBJECT- LAW OF CONTRACT

CASE STUDY: Donoghue v Stevenson

SUBMITTED TO

MRS. NEEMASRI YADAV

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

PREPARED BY

SHIVANI JAIN

LL.B

(SEMESTER 1st)

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 30 NOVEMBER 2018

 DECLARATION

I SHIVANI JAIN declare that the Case Study entitled “Donoghue v Stevenson” submitted to LCIT
College of law is an original and authenticated work written by me, under the guidance of Mrs Neemasri
Yadav, assistant professor of law of contract. The conclusion therein are based on material collected by myself

SHIVANI JAIN

LL.B. (Semester 1st)

 CERTIFICATE

This is certify that SHIVANI JAIN, student of LL.B 1st semester of LCIT college of law has completed the

project titled “Donoghue v Stevenson” under my guidance and completed it to my satisfaction. The
best of my knowledge,

The present work is the result of her own original investigation and study .

SHIVANI JAIN Faculty

signature: LL.B (semester 1st)

 ACKNOWLADGMENT

This project on “Donoghue v Stevenson” is an integrated part of law of contract, is do hereby

submitted to the law faculty of LCIT college of law, Bilaspur.

And it is purposely consecrate to the respected Assistant professor Mrs. Neemasri Yadav of the Law faculty.

I have tried out best not to fall into lapse of the subject matter and the language but errors the habit of creeping
in inadvertently. I hope that you and my fellow classmates will help me in making the project more useful.

Thank you
 PREFACE

I n This Project Discusses The Case Of “Donoghue v Stevenson” Continuously Studied through It. Also known
as the "Paisley snail"[5][6] or "snail in the bottle" case, the case involved Mrs Donoghue drinking a bottle
of ginger beer in a café in Paisley, Renfrewshire. A dead snail was in the bottle. She fell ill, and she sued the
ginger beer manufacturer, Mr Stevenson. The House of Lords held that the manufacturer owed a duty of care
to her, which was breached, because it was reasonably foreseeable that failure to ensure the product's safety
would lead to harm to consumers. There was also a sufficiently proximate relationship between consumers
and product manufacturers.
Prior to Donoghue v Stevenson, liability for personal injury in tort usually depended upon showing physical
damage inflicted directly (trespass to the person) or indirectly (trespass on the case). Being made ill by
consuming a noxious substance did not qualify as either, so the orthodox view was that Mrs Donoghue had
no sustainable claim in law. However, the decision fundamentally created a new type of liability in law which
did not depend upon any previously recognised category of tortious claims. This was an evolutionary step in
the common law for tort and delict, moving from strict liability based upon direct physical contact to a fault-
based system which only required injury. This evolution was taken further in the later decision of Letang v
Cooper [1965] 1 QB 232 when it was held that actions should not be jointly pleaded in trespass and
negligence.
 TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION I

CERTIFICATE II

ACKNOWLADGMENT III

PREFACE IV

I. INTRODUCTION

II CASE FACT

IIIARGUMENTS

IV. JUDGMENT

V. CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donoghue
v
Stevenson
"snail in the bottle"
case
 INTRODUCTION

the case involved Mrs Donoghue drinking a bottle of ginger beer in a café
in Paisley, Renfrewshire. A dead snail was in the bottle. She fell ill, and she sued
the ginger beer manufacturer, Mr Stevenson. The House of Lords held that the
manufacturer owed a duty of care to her, which was breached, because it was
reasonably foreseeable that failure to ensure the product's safety would lead to
harm to consumers. There was also a sufficiently proximate relationship between
consumers and product manufacturers.

Court House of Lords

Full case name M’Alister (or Donoghue)

(Pauper) v Stevenson[Note 1]

Decided 26 May 1932

Citation(s) [1932] UKHL 100

[1932] SC (HL) 31
[1932] AC 562

[1932] All ER Rep 1

Transcript(s) House of Lords transcript
Case history
Prior action(s) Outer House of the Court of
Session ([1930] SN 117)[3]
Appealed from Inner House of the Court of
Session ([1930] SN 138)[3]
Case opinions
Manufacturers have a legal duty of care to the
ultimate consumers of their products if it is not
possible for defects to be identified before the
goods are received.[1]:9[4]:643
Court membership
Judges sitting Lord Buckmaster
Lord Atkin
Lord Tomlin
Lord Thankerton

Lord Macmillan
 CASE FACT

On the evening of Sunday 26 August 1928, during the Glasgow Trades Holiday,
Donoghue took a train to Paisley, Renfrewshire. In Paisley, she went to the
Wellmeadow Café. A friend,who was with her ordered a pear and ice for herself
and a Scotsman ice cream float, a mix of ice cream and ginger beer, for Donoghue.The
owner of the café, Francis Minghella, brought over a tumbler of ice cream and
poured ginger beer on it from a brown and opaque bottle labelled "D. Stevenson,
Glen Lane, Paisley". Furthermore, although the bottle was labelled as
Stevenson's, McByde suggests it is possible it did not originally belong to him.
Bottles were often reused, and in the process occasionally returned to the
incorrect manufacturer. Moreover, Stevenson initially claimed he did not issue
bottles matching the description provided by Donoghue. Donoghue drank some of
the ice cream float. However, when Donoghue's friend poured the remaining
ginger beer into the tumbler, a decomposed snail also floated out of the bottle.
Donoghue claimed that she felt ill from this sight, complaining of abdominal
pain. According to her later statements of facts ( condescendences), she was
required to consult a doctor on 29 August and was admitted to Glasgow Royal
Infirmary for "emergency treatment" on 16 September. She was subsequently
diagnosed with severe gastroenteritis 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 Wellmeadow Café. The contact details for
the ginger beer manufacturer were on the bottle label and recorded by
Donoghue's friend.
Donoghue subsequently contacted and instructed Walter Leechman, a local
solicitor and city councillor whose firm had acted for the claimants in a factually
similar case, Mullen v AG Barr & Co Ltd, less than three weeks earlier
Despite the ruling in Mullen, Leechman issued a writ on Donoghue's behalf
against Stevenson on 9 April 1929. The writ claimed £500 in damages, the same
amount a claimant in Mullen had recovered at first instance, and £50 in costs. The
total amount Donoghue attempted to recover would be equivalent to at least
£27,000 in 2012.

Issue of the Case:

Did Stephenson owe a duty of care to Donoghue even though there was no contract between them, and there was no fraud?

The full allegations made by Donoghue were presented in five condescendences, which claimed that Stevenson had a duty of care to
Donoghue to ensure that snails did not get into his bottles of ginger beer, but that he had breached this duty by failing to provide a
system to clean bottles effectively, a system that would usually be used in the business and was necessary given that the ginger beer
was intended for human consumption.The ineffectiveness of the cleaning system was alleged to result from the bottles being left in
places "to which it was obvious that snails had freedom of access ... and in which, indeed, snails and snail trails were frequently
found", an allegation described by Matthew Chapman as "somewhat gratuitous". This breach of duty was alleged to
have caused Donoghue's subsequent illness
Stevenson responded to the condescendences by denying that any of his bottles of ginger beer had contained snails and "that the
alleged injuries are grossly exaggerated ... any illness suffered by the [claimant] was due to the bad condition of her own health at the
time".
In response to the writ, Stevenson pleaded :
(1) that the claim had no legal basis,
(2) that the facts could not be substantiated,
(3) that he had not caused Donoghue any injury
(4) that the claimed amount was excessive.
 Arguments

Injuries resulting from defective products were normally claimed on the basis of a contract of sale between the seller and the
consumer.[3] However, Donoghue had no contractualrelationship with Minghella as she had not purchased the ginger beer; while her
friend did have a contract through having placed the order, she had not suffered any injury. Moreover, neither had a contract with
SteveNSON, the manufacturer . Donogue was therefore required to claim damages for negligence.
JUDGMENT

On 26 May 1932, a majority of the House of Lords held that when an article of food, medicine, etc is sold by a manufacturer
to a distributor in circumstances which prevent the distributor or the ultimate purchaser or consumer from discovering by
inspection any defect, the manufacturer is under a legal duty to the ultimate purchaser or consumer to take reasonable care to
ensure that the article is free from any defect likely to cause injury to health. According to Lords Atkin, Thankerton and
MacMillan (Lords Buckmaster and Tomlin dissenting), this duty is owed even if there is no contract between the manufacturer
and the consumer.

This decision created a new category of duty of care, being that owed by a manufacturer of goods to the ultimate user of the
goods. However, it is also credited with establishing the modern form of the tort of negligence by setting out the general
principles for determining whether a person owes a duty of care to another. Prior to this decision, it was only recognised that
a duty of care was owed in very specific circumstances, such as where a binding contract existed between the parties or the
particular article was dangerous. The general conception of duty of care stated by Lord Atkin has since been used to identify
numerous categories of situation when a duty of care will arise
CONCLUSION

Significance:
"If the nature of a thing is such that it is reasonably certain to place life and limb in
peril when negligently made, it is then a thing of danger. Its nature gives warning of
the consequences to be expected. If to the element of danger there is added
knowledge that the thing will be used by persons other than the purchaser, and used
without new tests, then, irrespective of contract, the manufacturer of this thing of
danger is under a duty to make it carefully ... If he is negligent, where danger is to be
foreseen, a liability will follow."

Case critique opinion:

At the Court of Session, the claimants argued that although there was no direct
evidence that the manufacturer had been negligent in preparing the ginger beer,
negligence could be presumed from the mere presence of dead mice in ginger beer
bottles. However, the court ruled against the claimants. The majority held that on a
factual basis AG Barr & Co Ltd had rebutted a presumption of negligence and that on
a legal basis product manufacturers only owed a duty of care to the ultimate
consumers if there was a contractual relationship between the parties; if the
dangerousness of the product was intentionally withheld from the consumer (in which
case there might also be a claim for fraud); or if there was no warning of the intrinsic
dangerousness of certain products, such as explosives. Only Lord Hunter dissented,
finding that negligence to be inferred and that the fact that the bottle contents could
not be examined (because of the dark glass) gave rise to a specific duty of care that
would allow consumers to claim for damages.
However, neither of the circumstances in which negligence could be found in product
liability cases applied to Donoghue: ginger beer is not intrinsically dangerous, nor did
Stevenson intentionally misrepresent the threat it posed. Nevertheless,
Donoghue's counsel argued that manufacturers also owed a duty of care to their
ultimate consumers if it was not possible to examine the goods before they were
used, an exception that would apply to Donoghue.

Provision in Indian Contract Act

THE LAW OF DAMAGE
UNDER INDIAN CONTRACT
ACT 1872.

.
 Bibliography

Book Referred

Dr. Kailash Rai , General Principles of Contract-I

Avtar Singh, Contract & Specific relief.

Dr. R. K. Bangia, Law of Contract –I with Specific Relief Act

Website referred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson

https://www.lawteacher.net/cases/donoghue-v-stevenson.php

http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/

http://casebrief.wikia.com/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson