Remoteness Of Damage Summary

Introduction

The principle ‘remoteness of damage’ is based on the maxim ‘injure on remota causa sedproxima spectator’. It prevents plaintiff from recovering any damages that do not flow or arise as a direct consequence of the wrongful act complained of.

In a suit for damages in a tort case, the court awards pecuniary compensation to the plaintiff for the injury or damage caused to him by the wrongful act of the defendant. After it is proved that the defendant committed a wrongful act, the plaintiff would be entitled to compensation, may be nominal, though he does not prove any specific damage or injury resulting to him, in cases where the tort is actionable per se. Now the court’s enquiry resolves three questions: (1) Was the damage alleged

According to one view, foreseeability is the test of remoteness. In other words, on this view consequences are too remote if a reasonable man would not have foreseen them. It is the test of foreseeability that now holds the field but to properly understand the difference between the two views, it is more convenient to first notice the implication of the test of directness.

The leading authority to the test of directness is the decision of the court of Appeal in In Re an Arbitration between Polemis and Furness, Withy & Co.1 According to this case, once the tortious act is established, the defendant is to be held liable for all the damage which “is in fact directly traceable to thenegligent act, and not due to independent causes having no connection with the negligent act”. On this view, if the tort concerned is negligence, foreseeability of some

1. (1921) 3 KB 560 damage is relevant to decide whether the act complained of was negligent or not but the liability for damages is not restricted to all the damage directly traceable to the negligent

“Unfortunately in this area of law the same issues can be formulated in a number of different ways… It would, so I may confidently assert, surprise a newcomer to this area that there is considerable overlap even between [the questions of foreseeability and causation]”: Corr v IBC Vehicles [2006] EWCA Civ 331; [2007] QB 46 at[85] per Wilson L.J. so the claimant may recover in full from either of them. Nor is there any objection to a finding that the defendant’s breach of duty and the claimant’s own fault were both causes of the claimant’s damage. On the contrary, such a finding is a condition precedent to the operation of the law of contributory negligence.

(1) Intervening Natural Event. It is, of course, impossible for anything to happen in the physical world without the operation of natural forces, but sometimes the claimant suffers damage as the immediate result of a natural event which occurs independently of the defendant’s breach of duty but which would have caused the claimant no damage if the breach of duty had not occurred. In such a case, if the breach of duty has neither increased the likelihood that the claimant will suffer damage nor rendered him more susceptible to damage, it will not be treated as a cause of the