DONOGHUE VS STEVENSON

The neighbour principle was propounded by Lord Atkin as a ground of

overcoming the doctrine of privity of contracts so as to introduce liability
of third parties in a contract ie. Manufactures to their actual consumers.
Under the doctrine of privity of contracts, the interests of third parties in
a contractual agreement were not guaranteed, as it was reasoned that the
third parties were not part of the contracts.this was evidenced in the case
of Mullen v AG Barr and Co Ltd, which had nearly the same facts like
that of Donoghue and Stevenson. In the case, John and Francis Mullen
had separately found dead mice in their bottles of ginger beer
manufactured by AG Bar and Co Ltd, and claimed to have become ill
through the tainted liquid. The majority in Court of Session held that on
legal basis , product manufactures owed only a duty of care to the
ultimate consumers if claims of fraud, or if there was no warning of
intrinsic dangerousness of certain products ie. Explossives . The two
claimants hence lost the case , it was only Lord Hunter who dissented by
arguing that finding of negligence is to be inferred and the fact that the
bottle contents could not be examined gave rise to a specific duty of care
that would allow consumers to claim for damages.

The neighbour principle states that one must take a reasonable care to
avoid acts or omissions which they can reasonably see would likely to injure
their neighbours. My neighbour in law was further said to include those
persons that are closely and directly affected by my omissions or actions such
that I ought to reasonably have them in contemplation as being affected
when I am directing my actions or omissions which are called in question. The
fact that Stevenson manufactures did not take necessary care to ensure that
their ginger bottles were not stored in a hyeginic manner , away from the
possibility of being accessed by snails hence made them liable to the harm
that resulted after their Donoghue unknowingly drank the contents of the
tainted bottle. However the neighbour principle was not construed to open
floodgates of litigations as a tort feasor wont be taken to owe a duty of care
to those who are not close enough to be in his contemplation while at the
moment of the tortious act or omission.