Eighty years on, Keith Patten traces the legacy of Donoghue v Stevenson
Was there ever a snail in the ginger beer bottle? We will never know, because the most famous case in the common law world, which is 80 years old this month, went all the way to the House of Lords on a preliminary point of law and was never tried on its facts. That also leaves open the perhaps even greater evidential problem of whether Mrs Donoghue could have established a causative link between the presence of the snail and the injury for which she claimed.
Background
Much has been claimed for Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, [1932] All ER Rep 1, but one thing that it did not do was to invent the law of negligence. The idea of liability for carelessly inflicted harm, separate from contract, arising where, but only where, there was a pre-existing duty of care was developing throughout the 19th century, and was well established long before Donoghue and her friend ventured into the Wellmeadow Café in Paisley
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