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Tort

09 June 2011
Issue: 7469 / Categories: Case law , Law digest
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Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v Conarken Group Ltd; Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v Farrell Transport Ltd [2011] EWCA Civ 644, [2011] All ER (D) 288 (May)

It was settled law that forseeability and remoteness were to be considered together. Forseeability, as an abstract concept, was not determinative. An imaginative person might foresee extremely broad consequences as potentially resulting from his actions. In considering whether consequences were too remote to create a liability in negligence, reasonableness had a part to play.

Further, the fact that a claimant had contractually agreed with a third party the level of damages that it would pay, would not necessarily bind the tortfeasor. It was not open to a party to dictate to the whole world the extend to tortious liability and what was reasonably foreseeable and not too remote in order to achieve what it regarded as a satisfactory contract with a third party. It might lead to ever more ingenious attempts to attribute possible loses to a tort and would be inimical to the simple solution desired.
 

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