Donoghue v Stevenson

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 was a landmark court decision in Scots delict law and English tort law by the House of Lords. It laid the foundation of the modern law of negligence in common law jurisdictions worldwide, as well as in Scotland, establishing general principles of the duty of care. Also known as the "Paisley Snail" or "Snail in the Bottle" case, the case involved Mrs May Donoghue drinking a bottle of ginger beer in a café in Paisley, Renfrewshire. Unbeknown to her or anybody else, a decomposed snail was in the bottle. She fell ill, and subsequently 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 that 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 that 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, but in negligence alone.

Background and facts

On the evening of Sunday 26 August 1928, during the Glasgow Trades Holiday, May 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. Donoghue asked for a Scotsman ice cream float, a mix of ice cream and ginger beer. 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". Although the bottle was labelled as Stevenson's, McByde suggests it is possible it did not originally belong to him (Stevenson). 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. When her 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, 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 1 mile (1,600 m) 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 (see also George v Skivington). 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 approximately equivalent to £30,209 in 2025.

Condescendences 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 lawyer and author 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 four main arguments:

that the claim had no legal basis; that the facts could not be substantiated; that he had not caused Donoghue any injury; that the claimed amount was excessive.

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