Remoteness of Damage

Law Of Torts

1. REMOTENESS OF DAMAGE

2. Damage is the loss suffered by the person due to the wrongful act of another person. Damages is the amount of money which is paid as compensation for the injury suffered by a person . In a claim for damages, the person should have suffered a legal injury because in case no legal injury happens a person cannot claim damages even if he suffered an actual loss. It can be understood with the help of these maxims: Injuria sine damno ,  it means that there is a legal injury without any actual damage . Damnum sine injuria , it means that there is actual damage but no legal injury. . Damages can be provided in the cases of injuria sine damno but not in a case of damnum sine injuria. DAMAGE

3. REMOTENESS OF DAMAGE Once the damage is caused by a wrong, there have to be liabilities. The question is how much liability can be fixed, and what factor determines it . An event constituting a wrong can constitute of single consequence or may constitute of consequences i.e. series of acts/wrongs. The damage may be proximate or might be remote, or too remote.

4. A person is going driving on a road, he hits a girl on the footpath, the girl tumbles on a bicycle breaks her finger, the bicycle man loses his balance and gets in front of a fuel tanker, the tanker to save the man on the bicycle steers left but unfortunately hits the railing to a river bridge and falls into it , the lock of the fuel tank breaks and the oil spills into the river , the driver with the truck drowns . In the above case: T he girl being hit is the direct damage and it is the direct damage caused by the act of A. T he damage caused to the cyclist is proximately caused by the falling of the girl and is remote to the act of A. T he damage caused to the truck driver and the loss of material(fuel and fuel tank) is remote to the act of A and proximate to the act of the cyclist. And it is to be noted that the accountability to negligence is made on the assumption that the person is aware of the fact that rash driving can lead to fatalities. GENERAL ILLUSTRATION

5. Scott v. Shepherd: ‘A’ threw a lighted squib into a crowd,  it fell upon ‘X’. In order to prevent injury to himself, X did the same thing and it fell upon Y. Y in his turn did the same thing and it then fell on B, as a result of which B lost one of his  eyes. A was held liable to B. His act was the proximate cause of damage even though his act was farthest from the damage in so far as the acts X and Y had intervened in between. Haynes v. Harwood The defendant’s servants negligently left a house van unattended in a crowded street. The throwing of stones at the horses by a child, made them bolt and a policeman was injured in an attempt to stop them with a view to rescuing the woman and children on the road. One of the defenses pleaded by the defendant was remoteness of consequences i.e. the mischief of the child was the proximate cause and the negligence of the servants was a remote cause. CASE REFERENCES