Case Study on Negligence - Stella v Christine

Stella can take an action of Negligence against Christine for her careless conduct regarding the slippery floor as well as the heating urn and steamer. She will be the plaintiff, and Christine, the defendant. Stella bears the burden of proof that Christine owed her a duty of care, but omitted to perform it, which caused her personal injuries and economic loss. The elements, including duty of care, breach of duty of care, and damage, must be proven on the balance of probabilities. If proven, Stella will probably be able to claim monetary compensation for her medical costs, loss of earnings, and suffering and pain. At the meanwhile, however, Christine can defend herself by alleging Stella’s Contributory Negligence so that the amount of her compensation might be reduced.

DUTY OF CARE
The law states that the duty of care is established upon the reasonable foreseeability test, which means a defendant will owe a duty of care to a plaintiff where it is reasonably foreseeable that their act or omission of act might harm the plaintiff. Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] created the modern concept of negligence. Since then, the test of 'reasonable foreseeability' has been discussed in many cases. Take Wyong Shire Council v Shirt [1980] as an example, in that case the court held that it was a foreseeable risk that the ambiguity of the deep water sign might induce people to believe that the water was deep and therefore safe for water skiing; hence the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff.

There are generally three factors used in applying the reasonable foreseeability test.
a. The particular risk of injury that occurred.
The risk must be ‘real’ rather than merely possible or probable. As in Bourhill v Young [1943], the court held that the defendant owed no duty of care to the plaintiff, because there was not