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Study Guide covering the 7 key topics in the SRA's specification for FLK Tort Law for the #SQE
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00:00Imagine you're walking back home from the supermarket, plastic bag in hand, and you
00:03see a peacock running across the street and into someone's garden.
00:06You're like, wow, a peacock, I've got to take a pic of that.
00:09You talk your bag on the pavement and jump over the fence to be immediately shot in the
00:13face.
00:14Welcome to a presentation of the English law of tort, where you'll learn why you shouldn't
00:18jump over fences and where you'll encounter all key topics required for the FLK of the
00:23SQE for aspiring solicitors.
00:26And just in case you're tempted to booby-trap your property or wire your sent to the mains
00:30to deter burglars, remember the 1828 case of Byrd v Holbrook says that's a hard no.
00:37This video was prepared by Dr Yanis.
00:39He is aiming to make tort law feel practical.
00:42It helps to think like a newly qualified solicitor.
00:44A client tells you a story, and you must decide what duty was owed, whether it was breached,
00:49whether that breach caused legally recoverable loss, which defences might bite, and what
00:53remedies are realistically on the table.
00:55Along the way, you act honestly, with integrity, and in the public interest, under the SRA's
01:00principles and codes of conduct.
01:02That means not overclaiming, not intimidating litigants in person, and not pleading torts
01:07with no reasonable prospects.
01:09With that frame in mind, let's begin with negligence, the engine room of tort.
01:141.
01:15The duty of care.
01:16Negligence starts with a duty of care.
01:18In everyday personal injury and property damage cases, duty is rarely controversial.
01:23Careers owe duties to other road users, doctors to patients, employers to employees.
01:27When it is controversial, courts use a few tools.
01:30You'll hear people say Donahue v Stevenson and the neighbour principle.
01:34Take reasonable care to avoid actor omissions, which you can reasonably foresee would be likely
01:38to injure your neighbour, those closely and directly affected by your acts.
01:42In novel situations, courts move carefully using the Caparo three-stage approach.
01:47Was harm reasonably foreseeable?
01:49Was there a relationship of proximity?
01:51And is it fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty?
01:54Policy matters at this edge.
01:56Courts are far more cautious about imposing duties for economic losses than for physical
02:00injury.
02:01Sometimes the better question is not Caparo, but has responsibility been assumed?
02:06In negligent misstatement or advisory contexts, auditors, surveyors, professionals, duty often
02:10turns on a voluntary assumption of responsibility and reasonable reliance by the claimant.
02:15If you advise knowing they will rely, you can owe a duty, even if there is no contract
02:19between you.
02:20Keep that in mind for pure economic loss and misstatements later.
02:24Once you have a duty, ask about the standard of care and breach.
02:27The standard is objective, the reasonable person.
02:30It flexes with risk, gravity of harm, cost and practicality of precautions, and social
02:35utility of the defendant's activity.
02:37If the risk is small and precautions are onerous, the law does not require the world
02:41to grind to a halt.
02:42If the potential harm is grave, modest precautions become reasonable.
02:46Professional defendants are judged against a reasonably competent member of their profession.
02:50If a responsible body of opinion supports what they did, that can be evidence they were
02:54not negligent, but professional practice has to withstand logical analysis.
02:58The court will not rubber-stamp poor practice, just because several practitioners happen to
03:03follow it.
03:04When the defendant is an employer, folding a specific content of the employer's primary
03:08duty of care.
03:10Employers must take reasonable care to provide competent staff, adequate plant and equipment,
03:15a safe system of work, and proper supervision and training.
03:19That's not strict liability, it's a realistic duty calibrated to the workplace.
03:24If a risk is well known, inexpensive to mitigate, and serious if it eventuates,
03:28failing to act is likely to be a breach.
03:31Documented risk assessments and prompt responses to near misses matter in practice and in court.
03:362.
03:37Causation and remoteness Assuming breach turned to causation in fact,
03:42would the harm have occurred but for the breach?
03:44Often the answer is clear, sometimes it isn't, especially with multiple potential causes or
03:49cumulative exposures.
03:50In single-course cases, the but-for test does the heavy lifting.
03:54In multiple-course cases, courts sometimes accept material contribution to injury or material
03:58increase in risk, depending on the medical evidence and the type of harm.
04:02This is not an open-ended invitation to guess, it's a tightly managed exception to avoid injustice
04:06where scientific uncertainty makes strict but-for proof impossible.
04:09Next is legal causation, or novice actus interveniens.
04:13Did something new break the chain?
04:15Was the intervening act reasonably foreseeable, a natural response to the situation the defendant
04:19created, or was it so independent and potent that it fairly shifts responsibility away?
04:24A panicked but understandable rescue attempt typically doesn't break the chain, a bizarre
04:28criminal intervention might.
04:29You assess the sequence with common sense and fairness.
04:32Then comes remoteness.
04:33The defendant is liable for the kind or type of damage that was reasonably foreseeable at
04:37the time of breach.
04:38You don't need to foresee the exact mechanism or the full extent.
04:40If the kind of injury is foreseeable, the thin-skull principle applies.
04:43You take your victim as you find them.
04:45If a minor impact causes serious harm because of vulnerability, the defendant is liable for
04:49the full consequences.
04:513.
04:52Harm and Loss
04:53Now, the head of loss.
04:55For personal injury and fatal accidents, the principles are well settled.
04:59General damages compensate for pain, suffering and loss of amenity.
05:04Financial damages for quantifiable past losses and future losses for earnings, care, medical
05:09treatment and aids, discounted for contingencies and accelerated receipt.
05:15In fatal cases, claims may include dependency damages for those financially dependent on the
05:21deceased, a statutory bereavement award where available, funeral expenses and the estate's
05:27own claims.
05:29Always distinguish the estate's survival claim from dependence claims.
05:33They are conceptually different.
05:35Manage client expectations.
05:37No one is punished through damages.
05:39We restore as money can.
05:42Two tricky negligence topics cause exam pain.
05:46Psychiatric harm and pure economic loss.
05:49Let's simplify psychiatric harm first.
05:52The law draws lines.
05:53There is no separate tort of nervous shock, but courts insist on control mechanisms.
05:59A claimant needs a recognisable psychiatric illness, not mere grief or distress.
06:05Primary victims, those directly involved and within the range of foreseeable physical injury,
06:10can recover for psychiatric harm if injury of some kind was foreseeable.
06:16Secondary victims, witnesses who are not in danger themselves, face further hurdles.
06:20A close tie of love and affection to the person injured, proximity in time and space to the
06:25event or its immediate aftermath, and direct perception with unaided senses.
06:31The law is wary of widening this category because of the risk of indeterminate liability.
06:37In practice, be specific about diagnosis, proximity and the mechanism of injury.
06:43Pure economic loss divides the field.
06:46If negligence causes physical damage or personal injury, resulting financial loss is recoverable.
06:53But if the negligence merely makes a product or building defective,
06:57the loss is usually pure economic loss and unrecoverable in tort.
07:02It belongs to contract and statutory regimes.
07:06That's why claims for the cost of remedying inherent defects in a building tend to fail in tort,
07:12unless the defect also causes damage to other property or injures someone.
07:17There is an exception for negligent misstatements or services where a defendant assumes responsibility
07:23and the claimant reasonably relies.
07:26Surveyors who negligently value property, accountants who negligently ordered accounts for a known purpose,
07:33and professionals who supply information, not mere things, can owe duties in tort for foreseeable economic loss.
07:41The exam signals here are reliance, purpose, proximity, and whether the defendant was in the business of speaking with responsibility.
07:494. Defences
07:52Let's pause and step into defences in negligence.
07:54Contributory negligence is the workhorse.
07:56If the claimant failed to take reasonable care for their own safety and that failure contributed to the damage,
08:02the court reduces damages by a just percentage.
08:05Not wearing a seatbelt, ignoring obvious warnings, or mishandling equipment can all trigger reductions.
08:11The percentages are often argued fiercely, the point is to share responsibility fairly.
08:16Voluntary assumption of risk completely defeats the claim if the claimant
08:22knew the specific risk and freely agreed to run it.
08:25It's not enough that they knew an activity was risky.
08:27You need true, voluntary acceptance of the particular risk that materialised.
08:32Courts use this defence sparingly because contributory negligence allows for a more nuanced apportionment.
08:38Illegality is the last of the trio.
08:39The Modern Approach asks whether allowing the claim would harm the integrity of the legal system.
08:44Is the tort closely connected to the claimant's serious criminal conduct?
08:48Would recovery undermine a coherent set of legal norms?
08:51Not every illegal act blocks a claim.
08:54The question is whether the court should, as a matter of principle,
08:57help the claimant profit from or evade responsibility for their wrongdoing.
09:01You must plead and evidence this with care in line with your ethical duties.
09:05Alongside primary liability sits vicarious liability.
09:08An employer can be liable for the tort of an employee committed in the course of employment.
09:12Two questions. Is the relationship sufficiently akin to employment?
09:16And is the wrongful act closely connected to the field of activities assigned to the employee?
09:21If yes, vicarious liability spreads loss to the enterprise that benefits from the activity
09:26and can insure against it.
09:27It's not strict liability for everything an employee does.
09:30Frolics of their own and acts wholly outside the assigned field can fall outside.
09:35Also, vicarious liability sits on top of the employer's primary duties.
09:39You can plead both.
09:41Move now to occupier's liability.
09:43Think of two statutory frameworks.
09:45For lawful visitors, the 1957 act sets the common duty of care.
09:49Take such care as is reasonable to see that visitors will be reasonably safe
09:53for the purposes for which they are invited or permitted to be there.
09:57It's about the state of the premises, not negligent activities happening on them.
10:01Negligent activities are analysed under ordinary negligence.
10:04Who is an occupier turns on control, not title?
10:07Warnings can discharge the duty if they make dangers clear and reasonably safe.
10:12Specialists are expected to guard against special risks of their calling.
10:15Children are owed a higher standard because they are, by nature, less careful.
10:19You can, in some contexts, restrict or exclude liability to visitors with clear wording,
10:24but consumer and unfair terms legislation will police that strictly in consumer contexts.
10:29For non-visitors, including trespassers, the 1984 act imposes a narrower duty.
10:34Take reasonable steps to protect from injury by a danger on the premises if you know of the danger,
10:39know or have reasonable grounds to believe that the non-visitor may come into the vicinity
10:43and the risk is one against which you may be reasonably expected to offer some protection.
10:47Policy matters.
10:48Courts resist turning public spaces into risk-free zones or requiring public bodies to guard against
10:53obvious inherent risks of natural features.
10:56Bold warnings, barriers and sensible risk management will often be enough.
10:59Valenti can succeed more readily where a trespasser knowingly embraces an obvious danger.
11:055. Product Liability
11:07Product liability in English law really has two distinct roots,
11:11one based on negligence and one under statute, through the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
11:17Let's start with the common law route.
11:19In negligence, manufacturers, suppliers, importers and sometimes even retailers
11:24owe a duty to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable injury or damage caused by defective products.
11:32The principle is simple.
11:33Anyone who puts a product into circulation, knowing that it will reach the end user without
11:38reasonable opportunity for inspection, owes a duty to that ultimate consumer.
11:44This was established long ago in the famous case of Donoghue vs. Stevenson, where a decomposed
11:50snail in a bottle of ginger beer triggered modern product liability law.
11:54Since then, the duty has expanded beyond drinks and food to virtually anything placed on the market.
11:59Electrical appliances, medicines, cosmetics, cars, toys, even digital equipment.
12:06To succeed in negligence, the claimant must still prove the familiar four elements.
12:11Duty, breach, causation and loss.
12:14Breach means showing that the producer failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the product's safety,
12:19for instance, poor quality control, inadequate testing or failure to provide proper warnings or instructions.
12:26Causation can be tricky, especially where the product has been destroyed by the very defect that made it dangerous.
12:32In those cases, courts accept circumstantial evidence and inferences.
12:36For example, if a brand new kettle explodes on first use, the court may infer a manufacturing defect,
12:43even if the kettle itself cannot be tested.
12:45However, the claimant still carries the burden of proof.
12:49Negligence, therefore, requires evidence about fault, which can make such claims expensive and uncertain.
12:56Because of these difficulties, the Consumer Protection Act 1987 introduced a second statutory route,
13:03a strict liability regime that removes the need to prove negligence.
13:07The Act implements the European Product Liability Directive and its principle is clear.
13:13If a product is defective and that defect causes damage, the producer is liable,
13:19even if they exercised all possible care.
13:23Under the Act, a product is defined broadly.
13:26It includes any goods, raw materials or components, and even electricity.
13:31A product is considered defective when
13:34the safety of the product is not such as persons generally are entitled to expect.
13:39That phrase, entitled to expect, is deliberately flexible.
13:44It asks what an ordinary consumer would consider safe, taking all circumstances into account,
13:50how and when the product was marketed, any instructions or warnings given,
13:54what might reasonably be done with it, and the time when it was supplied.
13:59For example, if a new car's airbag fails to deploy in a low-speed collision because of a manufacturing fault,
14:06that car is not as safe as people generally are entitled to expect.
14:10The manufacturer would be strictly liable for the driver's injuries even if they had carried out
14:15extensive quality checks.
14:17Similarly, if a child's toy contains detachable small parts not properly labelled as a choking hazard,
14:24the producer can be liable for resulting injuries even without proof of carelessness.
14:29The Act applies to producers, which includes not only manufacturers of finished goods,
14:34but also those who make components, processors of raw materials,
14:38and anyone who presents themselves as the producer by putting their name or trademark on the product.
14:44Imports is into the UK can also be treated as producers.
14:48Retailers are usually not liable unless the actual producer cannot be identified,
14:54in which case the supplier must provide the claimant with the producer's details
14:58within a reasonable time or risk being treated as the producer themselves.
15:02What losses can be recovered?
15:05The statutory regime covers three main categories – death, personal injury,
15:10and damage to property used for private purposes.
15:13Property damage is subject to a monetary threshold, currently £275, to avoid trivial claims.
15:21The Act does not compensate for pure economic loss.
15:24If a product simply fails to work and needs replacement, but causes no injury and no damage to other property,
15:31the cost of repair or replacement is a contractual matter, not a taut claim.
15:36For example, if a washing machine stops working after a few months because of a design fault,
15:41the consumer must rely on sale of goods or warranty rights, not the Consumer Protection Act.
15:47But if the washing machine patches fire and burns part of the kitchen,
15:51the Act applies to the physical damage and any injuries caused.
15:55Defences under the Act are limited and must be strictly proved by the producer.
16:00They include compliance with mandatory regulations.
16:03If the defect results from compliance with a legal requirement
16:06that leaves no room for discretion, the producer is not liable.
16:10Development risks, sometimes called the state-of-the-art defence,
16:14where the state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time did not permit discovery of the defect,
16:18even using all available means.
16:21This is rarely successful, because producers must show that no one in the field could have detected the risk.
16:26Defects in components
16:28A producer of a finished product can argue that the defect lay entirely in a component supplied by another,
16:34provided they had no reasonable way to discover it.
16:36The component manufacturer, of course, may still be liable.
16:40Misuse or alteration by the consumer
16:42If the damage is caused because the product was used in a way no reasonable person could have expected,
16:47or it was substantially modified after leaving the producer, liability may be excluded.
16:52For instance, using a toaster near water or tampering with internal wiring might break the chain of causation.
16:58Product not yet put into circulation.
17:01If the product was stolen from the factory or still under testing,
17:04the producer is not yet in the market for the purposes of the Act.
17:08A few illustrations show how this works in practice.
17:11Suppose a new brand of allergy medication causes serious side effects,
17:15because the manufacturer failed to warn consumers that it should not be taken with another common medicine.
17:20Even if the drug met regulatory standards, the absence of an adequate warning could make it defective,
17:25and the manufacturer would be strictly liable under the Act.
17:28Or take a case involving a mobile phone battery that overheats and catches fire.
17:33The claimant doesn't need to prove any carelessness in the manufacturing process,
17:37only that the phone was defective and that defect caused their burns or property damage.
17:42Contrast that with a situation where the phone was damaged after the consumer used a cheap,
17:46unofficial charger that the manufacturer had clearly warned against.
17:49In that case, the misuse defense could succeed because the product was not being used in a way people
17:54were generally entitled to expect.
17:56Another example involves component parts.
17:58If an aircraft manufacturer fits an engine supplied by a specialist company,
18:02and the engine later explodes due to an internal flaw, injuring passengers,
18:06the engine maker, not the aircraft assembler, is the liable producer.
18:10The assembler may rely on the component's defense, provided they had no reason to suspect the defect.
18:16Claims under the Act are subject to strict time limits.
18:19Proceedings must be brought within three years of the date the claimant became aware,
18:23or should have reasonably become aware, of the damage, the defect and the identity of the producer.
18:28There is also a long-stop limitation period of ten years from the date the product was put into
18:32circulation. After ten years, liability is extinguished, even if the defect only becomes apparent later,
18:38an important consideration for long-lasting goods like building materials or medical implants.
18:44In practice, claimants often bring actions in both negligence and under the Consumer Protection Act,
18:48covering all bases. The statutory claim is easier because it removes the need to prove fault,
18:53but sometimes negligence claims allow for broader categories of loss, such as warnings,
18:57recall duties or contractual relationships. Solicitors advising clients must check which route
19:02offers the best prospects and what evidence exists. To sum up, the Consumer Protection Act 1987
19:08creates a strict liability framework to protect consumers and ensure high safety standards
19:13across industries. It reflects the policy that those who profit from putting products on the
19:17market should bear the cost of injuries caused by defects, rather than the injured consumer.
19:22The Act has proven effective in areas such as defective medical devices, contaminated food,
19:28exploding appliances and hazardous chemicals. But it also has clear limits – no recovery for
19:33pure economic loss, limited defences and tight time bars, making it essential for
19:38practitioners and SQE candidates to understand both its strengths and its boundaries.
19:44Nuisance and the rule in Rylands and Fletcher. Let's turn to nuisance. Private nuisance protects
19:49the use and enjoyment of land. It's not about a single careless act, it's about ongoing or repeated
19:53interferences or single events with continuing consequences that are unreasonable between neighbours.
19:58Ask, is there an interference with a claimant's use for enjoyment of land or with a right over it?
20:02Does the claimant have a proprietary interest? Is the interference substantial, not trivial?
20:06Is it unreasonable by balancing all the circumstances – locality, duration, frequency, time of day,
20:12sensitivity of the claimant, social utility and malice? Physical damage to land or buildings
20:17almost always counts. Loss of immunity, noise, odours, vibrations, fumes, dust – depends on the
20:21character of the neighbourhood. Abnormal sensitivity is discounted. The ordinary occupier is the yardstick.
20:27Malice counts against the defendant. Remedies lean towards injunctions for ongoing nuisances,
20:32but court are pragmatic. Sometimes damages in lieu are more appropriate if the public interest
20:36would be harmed by an injunction, or if an injunction would be oppressive.
20:40Defences include statutory authority, where the activity is authorised and the nuisance is
20:44its inevitable consequence, and prescription where a nuisance has been enjoyed openly and as
20:48of right for 20 years. Coming to the nuisance is not a defence by itself, though it may influence
20:52locality and reasonableness. Public nuisance is different. It protects the public's comfort and
20:57convenience – obstructing a highway, polluting a river, emitting noxious theorems across a wide area,
21:02it is both a tort and a crime. An individual claimant must show special damage beyond what
21:06the public at large suffers – personal injury, property damage or pecuniary loss that is distinct
21:11and substantial. Otherwise enforcement is for the Attorney General or public authorities.
21:16The modern statutory landscape now also includes a statutory public nuisance offence, but the private
21:21civil action continues where special damage is proved. Related but distinct is the rule in
21:25violence versus Fletcher. Think of it as a specialised, strict-ish liability for escapes from land.
21:30If you bring onto your land something likely to do mischief, if it escapes, you keep it in at your
21:34peril. If it escapes and causes foreseeable damage, you are prima facie liable. Modern law has narrowed
21:40this – the use must be extraordinary or non-natural, not an ordinary domestic or municipal use. There
21:45must be an escape from the defendant's land, and the damage must be foreseeable of a type.
21:49Defences mirror nuisance, act of a stranger, act of God in rare cases, statutory authority, consent,
21:54only proprietary interests, consunu, and claims are about property interest, not personal injury.
22:00In practice, most modern disputes about escapes are resolved under negligence or nuisance, but the
22:04rule remains examinable and can be decisive on unusual facts. Before we leave land and products,
22:09let's revisit exclusion of liability and warnings. For occupiers, a clear, prominent warning can reduce or
22:15discharge the duty if, in the circumstances, it was reasonable to rely on a warning rather than to
22:20remove or guard against the danger. For visitors who are consumers, attempts to exclude liability
22:25for death or personal injury caused by negligence will be void. Attempts to restrict lesser liabilities
22:30will be tested for fairness and transparency. For non-visitors, warning signs and barriers matter
22:36because the duty is already narrow. A clear warning of an obvious natural hazard may be all that is reasonable.
22:417. Remedies. Now, remedies and how courts quantify damages across torts. We've already covered personal
22:47injury and fatal accident damages. But more generally, damages aim to put the claimant in
22:52the position they would have been in but for the tort, so far as money can. In nuisance, you may see
22:57injunctions tailored with precision, limited hours of operation, noise attenuators, dust suppression
23:02measures. You may see damages in lieu where shutting down an activity would be disproportionate,
23:06and money can fairly compensate. In product cases under the Consumer Protection Act,
23:10damage is a compensatory for injury and qualifying property damage with standard personal injury
23:14principle supplied. Recall that the Act does not provide a route for pure economic loss relating
23:19to the product itself. Illegality can sometimes bar a remedy entirely if the court concludes it
23:24with compromise the integrity of the legal system to award it. More often, practical defences like
23:28contributory negligence or valenti reduce or defeat recovery without invoking public policy at its
23:33highest pitch. Always remember mitigation. Claimants have a duty to take reasonable steps to limit their losses.
23:39They cannot sit back, let damages mount, and expect the defendant to pay for avoidable consequences.
23:43On the defendant's side, you should advise early on interim payments. Where liability is clear
23:48and the claimant's needs are pressing, this is both humane and consistent with your professional
23:51obligations. Let's bring back employers. Employers' primary liability is not the only way
23:56employees get compensated. Vicarious liability allows claimants to sue the employer for employees'
24:01torts committed in the court of employment. This is often decisive, where an individual employee is
24:05uninsured or impecunious. In advising corporate clients, you need robust training, supervision,
24:10and incident reporting to reduce both primary and vicarious exposure. In advising claimants,
24:15always identify the deep pocket, the employer's insurer.
24:19Areas of special difficulty. We should also speak briefly about product liability
24:23defences because they are exam favourites. Under the strict liability regime, the producer can avoid
24:27liability if the defect did not exist when they supplied the product, if the defect was due to
24:31compliance with mandatory regulations, if the state of scientific knowledge at the time could
24:35not have revealed the defect, or if the product was not placed into circulation in the relevant sense.
24:41Misuse and abnormal handling by the claimant can raise contributory negligence or defeat causation.
24:46In negligence, the ordinary defences apply, and causation can be the real battleground where
24:50the product is destroyed. Now, psychiatric harm again, this time from the standpoint of occupiers and
24:55public authorities. In occupiers cases, secondary victim claims are scrutinised closely. Do not assume that
25:00witnessing an accident on land will be enough, the proximity requirements still apply. For public
25:05bodies managing natural spaces, policy arguments carry weight. The law does not expect rivers and lakes
25:10to be as safe as swimming pools, nor cliffs as safe as stairs. Clear warnings and obvious risks trim
25:16the duty back to what is reasonable in a free society. A word on ethics in practice. Your client
25:22might ask you to plead everything – negligence, nuisance, trespass, product liability, statutory breaches.
25:27Part of your duty is to exercise independent judgement. You must not mislead the court or waste resources.
25:33You should consider pre-action protocols, rehabilitation codes, ADR options, and the cost benefit of injunctive relief.
25:39Explain to claimants the real purpose of damages, the risks of fundamental dishonesty allegations,
25:44and the importance of accurate disclosure of prior conditions and earnings. Explain to defendants the reputational
25:50and regulatory landscape, especially for public bodies and consumer brands. Causation in complex multi-defendant
25:56cases deserves a final pass. Where several defendants each expose a claimant to a harmful agent, but science
26:02cannot say which exposure caused the indivisible disease, liability can attach if each materially increase
26:08the risk. Where harm is divisible, like noise-induced hearing loss, courts can apportion causation and damages
26:14between defendants by period and intensity of exposure. Think practically. Apportionment is often about
26:20evidence and credible records. On the claimant side, gather occupational histories, exposure matrices,
26:25and medical causation reports. On the defence side, scrutinise attributions and challenge leaps from
26:30correlation to causation. Let's return to pure economic loss with two typical illustrations, because this is
26:36where candidates drop marks. First, a contractor negligently pours a weak concrete slab in a new house.
26:42Years later, it cracks. The cost of replacing the slab is a loss flowing from the defect itself.
26:47In tort, that is pure economic loss and usually irrecoverable. The proper route is contractual
26:52warranties, collateral warranties, statutory building regimes, or the Defective Premises Act,
26:56where applicable. If the slab collapses and damages the claimant's furniture or injures someone,
27:01those consequential losses are recoverable in tort. Second, an accountant negligently certifies
27:07a company's accounts, known to be used by a named investor, to decide whether to purchase shares.
27:12The investor relies, buys, and loses money when the problems later surface. That is a negligent
27:17misstatement with assumed responsibility and reliance. Recovery for economic loss is possible.
27:23In both scenarios, the label economic loss is not the end of the analysis. You must ask which box it
27:28sits in and why. Before we close, let's assemble a mental checklist you can use in any tort problem.
27:331. Identify the tort or torts that fit the facts. Negligence, occupies liability, product liability,
27:39nuisance, Rylands, vicarious liability. 2. For negligence, walk the elements in order.
27:44Duty, breach, factual causation, legal causation, remoteness, recognised heads of loss. 3. Spot
27:51special regimes, occupies liability acts, consumer protection act, and apply their specific tests
27:56and defences. 4. Scan for defences, contribution, illegality, statutory authority,
28:01prescription warnings, exclusion clauses. 5. Remedies. What realistically helps this client?
28:07Injunctive relief, damages, structured settlements, or rapid interim payments.
28:116. Ethics. Advise with integrity, manage expectations, encourage early rehabilitation,
28:17and proportionate dispute resolution. Practical examples for use when you practice.
28:22Think like this when a client calls. A dog walker trips over a raised paving slab at dusk and breaks an
28:28ankle. 7. Duty, yes. 8. Breach, was the defect significant, known or reasonably discoverable,
28:34and unremedied for long enough. 9. Causation, straightforward.
28:379. Remoteness, injury was foreseeable. 10. Defences, was the walker intoxicated,
28:42did they ignore a clear barrier? Were they running in the dark without a torch?
28:4610. Remedy, pain, suffering and loss of amenity, lost income, care, travel, treatment.
28:5110. Occupier or highway authority, check statutory inspection regimes and records.
28:56They may show reasonable systems. You can hear the whole analysis flow from the framework we've built.
29:0111. Or consider a warehouse neighbour suffering dust and noise from a new cement batching plant.
29:07Negligence? Possibly, but nuisance feels natural. Does the interference substantially and unreasonably
29:13affect use and enjoyment of land, given the locality? Are there mitigation measures the operator
29:19could implement at reasonable cost? Mesting, acoustic barriers, restricted hours. Remedy might be an
29:25injunction tailored to performance standards, or damages if an injunction would be disproportionate.
29:30Public interest matters, but it is not a free pass to pollute a neighbourhood.
29:35A patient alleging delayed cancer diagnosis. Duty and standard. A reasonably competent specialist
29:41standard that withstands logical scrutiny. Causation? The but-for question can be hard.
29:47Did the delay cause a measurable reduction in survival chance, or more aggressive treatment?
29:52You may need to argue material contribution to injury, where appropriate, and supported by expert
29:57evidence. Damages? Pain, suffering and loss of earnings. Care and future treatment.
30:03Defences? Diagnostics are rarely clear cut. Logical defensibility of clinical judgement is key.
30:10Finally, remember the human element in psychiatric and fatal cases. Talk early about counselling,
30:15benefits and support services. Build medical evidence carefully. Ensure witness statements explain
30:21proximity and perception for secondary victims. Be candid about control mechanisms and the likelihood
30:27of success. That is acting with integrity. You now have a full SQE-aligned tour of tort. Negligence,
30:34with all its core elements, remedies and defences. Employers' primary duties and vicarious liability.
30:39Occupiers' liability for visitors and trespassers, with warnings and exclusion. Product liability in
30:44negligence and under the Consumer Protection Act. Private and public nuisance, with remedies and
30:49defences. And the specialised rule, in Rylands v Fletcher. If you keep returning to essentials,
30:54duty, breach, causation, remoteness, loss, defences and remedies, while staying alert to special regimes
31:01and ethical duties, you'll be able to analyse any tort scenario like a newly qualified solicitor.
31:07Thank you for watching and if you enjoyed this video, give it a like so it spreads to more people.
31:11See you next time.
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