What Is the Neighbour Principle in Donoghue v Stevenson?
Learn the neighbour principle in Donoghue v Stevenson: how foreseeability and a close connection can establish a duty of care, and what negligence still requires.
The neighbour principle is the idea that you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions that you can reasonably foresee would injure people closely and directly affected by what you do. In Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), Lord Atkin used this principle to explain when someone may owe another person a duty of care in negligence.
Why the case matters
Mrs Donoghue said she became ill after drinking ginger beer from an opaque bottle that allegedly contained a decomposed snail. Her friend had bought the drink, so Mrs Donoghue had no contract with the seller. The House of Lords held that a manufacturer could nevertheless owe a duty of care to the person who consumed its product, where it was intended to reach them without a reasonable opportunity for intermediate inspection.
The decision established that a duty of care does not depend on a contract. It did not decide that the manufacturer had, in fact, been negligent: that would require the remaining elements of a negligence claim to be proved.
Applying the principle
Suppose a manufacturer seals a drink containing a harmful contaminant. It is reasonably foreseeable that a consumer could be injured, and the consumer is closely and directly affected by how the drink was made. That supports a duty of care. The consumer would still need to show a breach of that duty (failure to take reasonable care), and that the breach caused their harm.
A common exam mistake is to treat the neighbour principle as meaning you owe a duty to everyone you might affect. The question is whether injury to this person was reasonably foreseeable and whether they were sufficiently closely and directly affected. Also, a duty of care alone does not prove the whole negligence claim.
