LAWS1061 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Lord Advocate, Sutton London Borough Council, Attractive Nuisance Doctrine
Document Summary
Remoteness is a mechanism which limits the ability of a plaintiff to recover damages to only those which were reasonably foreseeable consequences of the negligent act. A defendant will not be liable for damages which are too remote (outside the scope of liability), even if his negligence did cause them. [1] the test for remoteness is as follows: damages will be too remote when the damage suffered was not "reasonably foreseeable" by the defendant. [2: damage is only "not reasonably foreseeable" if it was thought to physically impossible or so "far fetched" that a reasonable person would completely disregard it. [3: only the general type of the damage needs to be foreseeable, not the manner of its occurrence or its extent. Damages which satisfy these requirements and are thus not considered remote will be recoverable by the plaintiff. Damages which are considered remote will not be recoverable.
