Claim against Chief Constable by Scarlett
Duty of Care and Breach of Duty
The issues of this claim are whether the police owed a duty to Scarlett and whether the duty was breached by the police.
To tackle the problems involving duty of care, the elements of duty of care should be first discussed. For a party to owe a duty of care to another party, there should be reasonable foresight of harm, sufficient proximity of relationship between parties and it should be fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty on the party.
In the case Swinney v Chief Constable of Northumbria No.1, the court affirmed that the police officers only owe a public duty of preventing crimes. No duty of care in negligence is owed by the police to individual citizens for failure to prevent crime. This rule is further confirmed in the case Hill v. Chief Constable of West
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Jones.
Regarding duty of care, the relationship of doctors owe duty of care to their patients is an established duty situation according to the neighbor principle established in Donoghue v. Stevenson. In addition, in the case Anderson v. Forth Valley Health Board, the court finds that when a duty of care relating pregnancy is owed to one party, then duty of care is owed to another party of the married couple because both would be affected by the pregnancy.
When applying the rules to this case, Dr. Jones owes duty of care to Peter as they are in a doctor-patient relationship, according to the neighbor principle. Duty of care is also owed to Scarlett, the wife of Peter by following the decision in Anderson case.
After determining whether duty of care exists, the following question would be whether there is a breach of duty by Dr. Jones. To prove that there is a breach of duty, proof of the defendant falls below the expected standard of care is essential. The Bolam case once again could be applied here to determine the standard of care of