Judicial Precedent: Donoghue v. Stevenson and Grant v. Australian Knitting Mills Ltd Cases Term Paper

Introduction

This is a paper on judicial precedent. The paper will basically give a summary of case law (Grant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936]). This is an example of judicial precedence in action. In summarizing the case law, the paper will outline the relevant facts about the case and thus shows how it developed an early case Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932]. An outline of the Donoghue v. Stevenson case is given and afterward, a synthesis of the Grant v. Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] case follows.

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932]

This was a case involving Mrs. Donoghue who had been bought some beer. The beer bottle had residuals of a nail.

Mrs. Donoghue went to a cafe with a friend. The friend brought her a bottle of ginger beer and ice cream. The ginger beer came in an opaque bottle so that the contents could not be seen. Mrs. Donoghue poured half the contents of the bottle over her ice cream and also drank some from the bottle. After eating part of the ice cream, she then poured the remaining contents of the bottle over the ice cream and a decomposed snail emerged from the bottle. Mrs. Donoghue suffered personal injury as a result. She commenced a claim against the manufacturer of the ginger beer. (e-lawresources 1)

Mrs. Donoghue succeeded in her claim and this led to the establishment of the tort of negligence and the neighbor principle (Cooke 35). Lord Aitken made the following statement in relation to the judgment of the case:

A manufacturer of products, which he sells in such a form as to show that he intends them to reach the ultimate consumer in the form in which they left him with no reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, and with the knowledge that the absence of reasonable care in the preparation or putting up of the products will result in an injury to the consumer’s life or property, owes a duty to the consumer to take that reasonable care. (Privy Council 1)

The Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] case has been used as precedent judicial for instance in the case of Gant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936].

Gant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936]

Gillies gave a comprehensive summary of the above case:

The plaintiff had bought an undergarment from a retailer. It was contaminated with a chemical, which caused severe dermatitis. The Privy Council held that there was an implied term of fitness for purpose in the contract, by virtue of the operation of the statute (the SA Act). In a case of the type in question, “of a purchase from a retailer, the reliance will, in general, be inferred from the fact that a buyer goes to the shop in the confidence that the tradesman has selected his stock with skill and judgment: the retailer need know nothing about the process of manufacture: it is immaterial whether he is the manufacture or not: the main inducement to deal with a good retail shop is the expectation that the tradesman would have bought the right goods of the right make. (Gilliea 415)

The plaintiff succeeded in suing the retailer in contract and the manufacture in tort. The manufacturer was sued in tort because there was no privity between the plaintiff and the manufacturer.

Synthesis of Gant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] A.C. 562

In this case, the appellant contacted dermatitis which had originated from an external source. The external source was a woolen garment that had been purchased from a retailer and was not in a good condition to be sold. The woolen garment contained excessive sulfite which was said to have caused dermatitis on the skin of the appellant. It was held that the retailers were liable for breaching a contract or implied warranty. It was argued that the appellant could not detect the deleterious chemical which was in the woolen garment. It was also noted that even with close examination it could not be possible for the detection of the chemical. It was further noted that there was no process that was undertaken to necessitate the removal of the chemical between the manufacturing and it’s being worn. The appellant used the woolen garment for the purpose it was manufactured. This showed that the manufacturer was responsible and was held liable in tort.

The Principle of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562

The Principle of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562 was applied to the case of Gant v. Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] A.C. 562. It should be noted that the principle can only be applied when it is not possible for the defect present to be known by the consumer, that is, it is hidden. The liability in tort was found to be independent of contract questions.

An appeal made later brought some questions on the evidence which had been accepted early. There was a differing opinion on whether the evidence presented early was enough to make conclusions on liability. The question which was brought up in the appeal was whether the appellant had contracted dermatitis due to the chemical agent in the woolen garment. The argument was that the skin was not healthy enough and as a result it contacted dermatitis. It was noted that how normal the skin was at the time the woolen garment was worn was not relevant. It was also pointed out that the manufacture was obligated to ensure that the garment sold was safe. Another question that was raised was whether the appellant had contacted dermatitis from an external source or from the woolen garment. For this question to be settled it was mandatory that the history of the case was reviewed. It was shown that the sale of that type of garment was by description.

It was also pointed out that there was no proximity between the manufacturer and the consumer as was the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562. It was pointed out that in order for the manufacturer to be solely responsible for the safety of the product then there was a need for a direct relationship between the manufacturer and the consumer. It was noted that this was the case in the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562. It was argued that in the present case, there was a need to get the appellant in a direct relationship with the manufacturer. It was argued that the act of a manufacturer creating a product in such a manner that between the manufacturer and the consumer the products could not be interviewed within any manner whether by inspection or otherwise. It was argued that for the case of Gant v. Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] A.C. 562 this was not true as it was in the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562. It was argued that for the manufacturer to be obligated it was necessary that there was the exclusion of intermediary supervision.¹ It was argued that when control of the product ceases then responsibility likewise ceases. In the appeal therefore it was argued that there were possibilities of other parties carrying out an inspection before the woolen garment could reach the appellant.

On an early question touching on whether the skin of the appellant was normal and whether the dermatitis was not due to an external origin it was shown that the appellant’s skin was normal and was not susceptible to have been affected by woolen clothes because the appellant used to use woolen wears before. The appellant’s skin was also shown to be normal.² Though there were arguments that the appellant had early suffered from tuberculosis which was argued could have weakened the skin and led to easy infection once it was irritated the argument was not strong enough to hold.

After cross-examinations, it was necessary to establish whether the chemical present was of enough quantities to have caused dermatitis.³ There were some difficulties to be overcome; it was noted that the garment was already washed and as such it could not be possible to establish the quantity of the chemical present at the time the garment was purchased. A series of demonstrations to prove whether the chemical present in the garment was of enough quantity to have caused dermatitis was not successful. But it was clear that the appellant’s skin was normal. It was also known that the chemical in the right quantities could cause dermatitis. The argument was therefore that since it was already shown that at least some traces of the chemical were found and that the probability was the appellant had contacted dermatitis from the chemical then the chemical was in enough quantities. It was decided that if it could be held that the garment contained improper chemicals which resultantly could have caused the disease then the retailer could be liable.⁴

It was decided that the retailers were liable in the contract. It was shown than that the question of negligence could not rise as it was irrelevant in the contract liability. On the side of the manufacturer, several questions were raised; the question of privity between the appellant and the manufacturer, the question of liability, and the question of the cause of action. The decision made was that the manufacturer was liable in tort but there was no privity between the appellant and the manufacture. The gist of the cause of action was found to be negligence.

It should be noted that the principle of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562 is applied where the defect causing the problem is hidden and not known by the consumer. If the consumer is aware of the defect in the product and proceeds to consume it then it follows that he/she does such an action willingly to inflict pain intentionally. In the case of Gant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] A.C. 562 there was found to be some similarities in the essentials:

The presence of the deleterious chemical in the pants, due to negligence in manufacture, was a hidden and latent defect, just as much as were the remains of the snail in the opaque bottle: it could not be detected by any examination that could reasonably be made. Nothing happened between the making of the garments and they’re being worn to change their condition. The garments were made by the manufacturers for the purpose of being worn exactly as they were worn in fact by the appellant: it was not contemplated that they should be first washed. It is immaterial that the appellant has a claim in contract against the retailers, because that is a quite independent cause of action, based on different considerations, even though the damage may be the same. Equally irrelevant is any question of liability between the retailers and the manufacturers on the contract of sale between them. The tort liability is independent of any question of contract. (Privy Council 1)

An attempt was made to distinguish the Donoghue case from the Gant case. The ground of differentiating the cases was that the beer manufacturer controlled their products by the fact that their bottles were sealed. It was argued that in the case of the woolen garments they were packed in a group of six and later unpacked by the retailer who could sell them individually. It was therefore argued that the manufacturer had not done enough to ensure that the goods were not tampered with. This argument was not accepted on the grounds that Donoghue’s case was not decided on the reason that the bottle was sealed but rather that the product was intended to reach the product in the same status that it was when leaving the manufacturer. This was shown to be true of the garment thus the principle used in the Donoghue case was upheld in the Gant case.

References

Cooke, John. Architects, Engineers and the Law. New York: Federation Press, 2001. Print.

e-lawresources. “Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 House of Lords.” E-Lawresources, 2009. Web.

Gilliea, Peter. Business law. New York: Federation Press, 2004. Print.

Privy Council. “Grant v. Australian Knitting Mills Limited and Others 2003.” LA313 – Commercial Law – Cases, 2003. Web.

Footnotes

1. The principle laid down by Lord Atkin in Donoghue’s case was that where a manufacturer so dealt with goods as to establish direct proximity between himself and the ultimate consumer, and there was no reasonable opportunity of inspection intervening between delivery by the manufacturer and the taking into effective consumption, then the manufacturer has a duty to take care that the consumer is not injured.
2. He had habitually up to the material time-worn woolen undergarments without inconvenience; that he was not sensitive to the mechanical effects of wool seemed to be proved by an experiment of his doctors, who placed a piece of scoured wool on a clear area on his skin and found, after a sufficient interval, no trace of irritation being produced.
3. Sweat is being slowly and continuously secreted by the skin, and combined with the free sulfites to form successively sulfur dioxide, sulfurous acid, and sulphuric acid: sulphuric acid is an irritant that would produce dermatitis in normal skin if applied in garments under the conditions existing when the appellant wore the underpants.
4. They could be held liable for breach of implied warranty, or rather condition, under s. 14 of the South Australia Sale of Goods Act, 1895, which is identical with s. 14 of the English Sale of Goods Act, 1893.