Foundations of Business Law
Assignment 1
Levi Manuel 100102979
Question 1
What legal issues does this situation raise and what are the possible legal consequences?
First legal issue- Was there a duty of care?
In this case there a number of legal issues and the first and foremost of these issues is was there a duty of care? Duty of care, as a general rule, is that the defendant who owes a duty of care to all persons who it is reasonably foreseeable will suffer loss or damage as a result of the defendant’s actions. The principle law that can define duty of care and what it may entail is Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 5621.
In this situation there was a duty of care for the defendant, who is the bank, to provide to the plaintiff, who is the old man, as the defendant was in a position to see that water had come into the building and the floor was wet. This wet floor would have greatly increased the chance of someone slipping over and causing injury. They would have known that failure to properly warn customers who both enter and leave the building that there was water on the floor and would be reasonable foreseeable to lead to either injury of a customer or an employee.
As well as this there was a vulnerable relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant. The plaintiff would have entered the bank in good faith and under an assumed knowledge that if there was a hazard to his and others health the bank would place some type of signage or warning of the slippery floor or to remedy it by mopping up the water. As such he was also reliant on the bank to provide this warning or to mop up the water and ensure the surface of the floor was not dangerous to walk on.
Second legal issue- was the duty of care breached?
The second issue that this case raises is whether the duty of care was breached by the defendant. To establish a breach of duty of care it must be shown that the defendant failed to do what a reasonable person would have done in the same...