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Showing contexts for: consequential damage in Jay Laxmi Salt Words (P) Ltd vs State Of Gujarat on 4 May, 1994Matching Fragments
(a) a legal duty on the part of A towards B to exercise care in such conduct of A as falls within the scope of the duty;
(b) breach of that duty;
(c) consequential damage to B."
12According to Dias, "[L]iability in negligence is technically described as arising out of damage caused by the breach of a duty to take care."
These textbooks thus make it amply clear that the axis around which the law of negligence revolves is duty, duty to take care, duty to take reasonable care. But concept of duty, its reasonableness, the standard of care required cannot be put in strait-jacket. It cannot be rigidly fixed. The right of yesterday is duty of today. The more advanced the society becomes the more sensitive it grows to violation of duties by private or even public functionaries. Law of torts and particularly the branch of negligence is consistently influenced and transformed by social, economic and political development. The rule of strict liability developed by English Courts in Rylands v. Fletcher' was judicial development of the liability in keeping with growth of society and necessity to safeguard the interest of a common man against hazardous activities carried on by others on their own premises even though innocently. By conservative standard it could not be termed as negligence as damage arose not by violation of duty. Yet the law was expanded to achieve the objective of protecting the common man not by narrowing the horizon of legal injury but by widening it. In Donoghue v. Stevenson9 the House of Lords held a duty to take care as a specific tort in itself. Even improper exercise of power by the authorities giving rise to damage has been judicially developed and distinction has been drawn between power coupled with duty. Where there is duty the exercise may not be proper if what is done was not authorised or not done in the bona fide interest of the public. In David Geddis v. Proprietors of the Bann Reservoir' 1 the failure to keep the reservoir clean as a result of blameworthy negligence leading to overflow was held to be liable for negligence. It was reiterated in Tate and Lyle Industries Ltd. v. Greater London Council12. It was held that where public right was interfered with which resulted in public nuisance the claim for damages was maintainable. The English Courts have extended the principle of strict liability to varied situations. Thus the distinction arising out of damage due to negligence and even without it rather unintentionally and innocently is a firmly established branch of law of tort. In Read v. J. Lyons & Co. Ltd.3 it was observed that damage caused by escape of cattle to another land was a case of pure trespass constituting a wrong without negligence. Thus negligence is only descriptive of those sum total of activities which may result in injury or damage to the other side for failure of duty both legal or due to lack of foresight and may comprise of more than one concepts known or recognised in law, intended or unintended.