SQE1 Tort Law.

A man buys a sealed box of cereal bars from a corner shop and gives one to a woman he works with. The manufacturer makes and wraps the bars and supplies them to retailers in sealed boxes that cannot be opened or examined before sale. A sharp metal fragment from a worn cutting blade at the manufacturer's plant is embedded in the bar. The woman bites into it, breaking a tooth and cutting her mouth badly. She paid nothing for the bar.

Does the manufacturer owe the woman a duty of care in respect of her injury?

1. Yes, because a manufacturer owes a duty to the ultimate consumer of a product supplied in sealed packaging. Correct
2. Yes, because a manufacturer is liable for any defect in its products whether or not it took reasonable care.
3. No, because a duty of care in negligence arises only between parties in a direct contractual relationship.
4. No, because the woman had no dealings with the manufacturer capable of amounting to a special relationship.
5. No, because liability for unsafe consumer products is governed exclusively by statute and not by the common law.

A firm of accountants is engaged by a manufacturing company to audit and prepare its statutory accounts, which are then filed at Companies House. A trade supplier that has never dealt with the company reads the filed accounts, sees healthy profits, and agrees to supply it with raw materials on 60 days' credit. The figures have been prepared carelessly and overstate the profits substantially. The company is wound up before paying and the supplier recovers nothing. The accountants have never heard of the supplier.

What is the best advice to give the supplier about a claim in negligence against the accountants?

1. The claim will succeed, because the accountants could foresee that a supplier might read the filed accounts and act on them.
2. The claim will fail, because the accountants were in no proximate relationship with a supplier unknown to them. Correct
3. The claim will fail, because pure economic loss can never be recovered in the tort of negligence.
4. The claim will succeed, because the accountants held themselves out as having special skill in preparing accounts.
5. The claim will fail, because the supplier gave the accountants no consideration for their work.

A company buys a commercial unit built five years earlier. Its concrete floor slab was designed by the building contractor without enough reinforcement and has begun to crack and lift. An engineer reports that the unit is safe to use, but that replacing the slab will cost a large sum and that the unit is worth less until it is replaced. The developer that sold the unit has since been dissolved, so the company sues the contractor for the cost of the work.

Can the company recover the cost of replacing the slab from the contractor?

1. Yes, because a builder owes the same duty to avoid economic loss as to avoid physical injury.
2. No, because the cost of repairing a defective but safe building is pure economic loss. Correct
3. Yes, because the cracking of the slab is physical damage to the company's own property.
4. Yes, provided the company can show that the weakness of the slab was foreseeable when it was designed.
5. No, because the company's only remedy lay against the developer that sold it the unit.

A primary school holds its sports day on the school field. Building work the week before has left a patch of the field rutted and uneven. A teacher notices it two days before the sports day and mentions it in the staff room, but nothing is done to fence it off or move the running track. During a race a nine-year-old catches her foot in a rut, falls and breaks her wrist. The school says that children often fall over when they run and that this was simply an accident.

Is the school likely to be liable to the pupil for her injury?

1. No, because a school cannot be expected to remove every possible risk from its playing field.
2. No, because tripping while running is an ordinary risk that any child taking part in a race accepts.
3. Yes, because a school is strictly liable for any injury suffered by a pupil in its care.
4. No, because the uneven ground was created by the contractor who carried out the building work.
5. Yes, because a school must guard against risks that children cannot be expected to appreciate themselves. Correct