Negligence – Duty of Care Analysis – Established Category

This question principally relates to the issue of negligence and the duty of care analysis. As the question instructs, you must restrict yourself to an analysis of the duty of care, i.e., whether a duty of care exists from the doctors to Claire, and not go beyond. If you do, you may not earn any extra mark and may end up wasting your own time.

Secondly, you must open your eyes to the fact that you must specify all the doctors involved here and conduct the duty of care analysis as regards the acts and omissions of each of them

Thirdly, and perhaps, most importantly, your first step in answering this question is to determine whether this is a question that requires you to deal with the duty of care analysis under the established category or under the novel category. Making the proper determination that the duty of care in this case is under the established category will guide you in answering the question correctly, and vice versa.

(To enable you identify the difference, we have prepared another similar question that requires the duty of care analysis under the novel category. It is Sample Question 2).