Common Professional Examination (CPE) Tort Law Syllabus

Tort Law syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Tort Law in Common Professional Examination (CPE), not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Negligence: Duty and Breach

   3 topics

   • The Duty of Care
     • The neighbour principle and Caparo three-stage test
     • Incremental development of duty
   • Breach of Duty
     • The reasonable person standard
     • Factors: magnitude of risk, cost of precautions, social utility
     • Professional standard and the Bolam/Bolitho test
   • Proof of Breach
     • Res ipsa loquitur
2. 2

   Negligence: Causation and Defences

   3 topics

   • Factual Causation
     • The 'but for' test
     • Material contribution and loss of chance
   • Legal Causation and Remoteness
     • Novus actus interveniens
     • The Wagon Mound reasonable foreseeability test
   • Defences to Negligence
     • Contributory negligence
     • Volenti non fit injuria and illegality
3. 3

   Special Forms of Negligence

   4 topics

   • Pure Economic Loss
     • Negligent misstatement and Hedley Byrne assumption of responsibility
   • Psychiatric Harm
     • Primary and secondary victims
     • The Alcock control mechanisms
   • Liability of Public Bodies and Omissions
   • Employers' and Occupiers' Liability
     • Occupiers' Liability Acts 1957 and 1984
4. 4

   Torts of Strict and Vicarious Liability

   4 topics

   • Vicarious Liability
     • Employment relationship and 'akin to employment'
     • Course of employment and the close connection test
   • The Rule in Rylands v Fletcher
     • Non-natural use and escape
   • Product Liability
     • Consumer Protection Act 1987
   • Breach of Statutory Duty
5. 5

   Land, Reputation and Remedies

   4 topics

   • Nuisance
     • Private nuisance: unreasonable interference
     • Public nuisance and statutory authority
   • Trespass to Land and the Person
     • Assault, battery and false imprisonment
   • Defamation
     • Libel and slander; the Defamation Act 2013
     • Defences: truth, honest opinion, publication on a matter of public interest
   • Remedies in Tort
     • Compensatory damages and heads of loss
     • Injunctions and abatement

Tort Law flashcards for Common Professional Examination (CPE)

21 of 60 cards from the Tort Law deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. What three elements must a claimant prove to establish a claim in negligence?

   (1) The defendant owed the claimant a duty of care; (2) the defendant breached that duty; and (3) the breach caused damage that was not too remote.

2. What is the modern three-stage test for establishing a novel duty of care, and from which case does it come?

   The Caparo v Dickman (1990) test: (1) reasonable foreseeability of harm; (2) sufficient proximity between claimant and defendant; and (3) that it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty.

3. State the 'neighbour principle' as formulated by Lord Atkin in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932).

   You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your 'neighbour' — persons so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought reasonably to have them in contemplation.

4. After Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire (2018), when is the full Caparo three-stage test actually applied?

   Only in genuinely novel situations. Where an established duty category or close analogy exists, courts reason incrementally from precedent rather than applying Caparo afresh.

5. What is the legal standard against which breach of duty is measured?

   The objective standard of the 'reasonable person' — a reasonable person doing the defendant's activity. The defendant's own characteristics/inexperience are generally irrelevant (Nettleship v Weston).

6. How is the standard of care adjusted for a defendant professing a special skill, and what test applies?

   They are judged by the standard of the reasonably competent member of that profession. The Bolam test: no breach if acting in accordance with a responsible body of professional opinion (subject to the Bolitho gloss that the opinion must be logically defensible).

7. List the four key factors a court weighs when deciding whether the standard of care has been breached.

   (1) Likelihood/probability of harm; (2) seriousness/magnitude of potential harm; (3) cost and practicability of precautions; and (4) social utility of the defendant's activity.

8. What standard of care applies to children as defendants in negligence?

   The standard of a reasonable child of the defendant's age, not a reasonable adult (Mullin v Richards).

9. Explain the 'Bolitho' qualification to the Bolam test.

   A professional body of opinion will not protect the defendant if the court finds that opinion is not capable of withstanding logical analysis — i.e. it is not reasonable or responsible (Bolitho v City and Hackney HA).

10. What does the maxim 'res ipsa loquitur' mean and what is its effect on proof of breach?

    'The thing speaks for itself.' Where the harm would not normally occur without negligence, the thing causing harm was under the defendant's control, and the cause is unknown to the claimant, it raises an inference of negligence, shifting the evidential burden to the defendant to explain.

11. What is the effect of s.11 of the Civil Evidence Act 1968 on proof of breach?

    A defendant's relevant criminal conviction is admissible in civil proceedings as evidence that they committed the offence, and is presumed to have done so unless the contrary is proved — easing the claimant's burden of proving breach.

12. State the 'but for' test for factual causation and the authority for it.

    The claimant must show that 'but for' the defendant's breach, the harm would not have occurred (Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee).

13. In Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital, why did the negligence claim fail despite a breach of duty?

    Factual causation was not made out: the patient would have died of arsenic poisoning even if properly examined, so 'but for' the doctor's negligence the death would still have occurred.

14. What is the 'material contribution to harm' exception to the 'but for' test, and its source?

    Where harm has a cumulative cause and the breach materially contributed to it, causation is established even if 'but for' cannot be strictly proven (Bonnington Castings v Wardlaw).

15. What is the Fairchild exception and to what type of injury does it apply?

    Where multiple employers negligently exposed a claimant to asbestos and science cannot identify which exposure triggered mesothelioma, a defendant who materially increased the risk is liable (Fairchild v Glenhaven); now governed for mesothelioma by s.3 Compensation Act 2006 (joint and several liability).

16. What is the test for legal causation regarding intervening acts (novus actus interveniens)?

    A new intervening event breaks the chain of causation if it is unforeseeable and sufficiently independent — e.g. a third party's act, the claimant's own unreasonable conduct, or a natural event — such that the defendant is no longer the operative cause.

17. State the test for remoteness of damage in negligence and its leading authority.

    Damage is recoverable only if the type/kind of harm was reasonably foreseeable (The Wagon Mound (No 1)). The precise manner and extent need not be foreseeable.

18. Explain the 'egg-shell skull' (thin skull) rule.

    The defendant must take the victim as they find them. If the type of harm is foreseeable, the defendant is liable for its full extent even if increased by the claimant's pre-existing vulnerability (Smith v Leech Brain).

19. What does Hughes v Lord Advocate establish about foreseeability of the manner of harm?

    Provided the type of harm (here, burns) is foreseeable, it is irrelevant that it occurred in an unforeseeable manner; the defendant remains liable.

20. What is the effect of contributory negligence and which statute governs it?

    Under the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945, damages are reduced to the extent the court thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant's share in responsibility — it is a partial defence, not a complete bar.

21. List the requirements for the complete defence of 'volenti non fit injuria' (consent).

    (1) The claimant had full knowledge of the nature and extent of the risk; (2) voluntarily and freely agreed to run that risk; and (3) genuinely consented to waive any claim. It is a complete defence.

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