Resiling from the Anns principle: the variable nature of proximity in negligence

Abstract

For a number of years there has been considerable criticism of both Donoghue v Stevenson and Anns v London Borough of Merton on the grounds that the prima facie duty doctrine which some believe those cases established is so wide as to be meaningless and obscures more than it reveals. This article seeks to show how the courts have come to accept this criticism and to indicate how the concept of duty should now be viewed. In particular the point is that there are now different levels of proximity required to establish a duty in different situations and that while this means that the various categories of duty must be distinguished from each other, this does not involve ossification of the law, but rather development of the law may be made easier by a pragmatic rather than a conceptual approach. The principle that 'the categories of negligence are never closed’ means both that existing duties may be refined and extended, and also that new duties may be created. How that can be done depends on our understanding of the nature of the concept of duty and how each step should be taken.