Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock & Engineering Co Ltd (The Wagon Mound No 1)
[1961] AC 388
Ratio Decidendi
The test for remoteness of damage in negligence is reasonable foreseeability: a defendant is liable only for damage of a kind that a reasonable person in their position would have foreseen as a real risk at the time of the negligent act. This overruled the direct consequence test in Re Polemis [1921] 3 KB 560, under which liability extended to all direct consequences of negligence however unforeseeable. The change aligns the remoteness test with the duty-of-care and breach tests, producing a coherent scheme of negligence liability based on what ought reasonably to have been foreseen.
Hechos
The defendants carelessly discharged furnace oil from their ship, The Wagon Mound, into Sydney Harbour. The oil spread to the claimant's wharf where welding was being carried out. Sparks from the welding ignited cotton waste floating on the oil, causing a fire that damaged the wharf.
Resumen de la sentencia
The Privy Council (Viscount Simonds delivering the judgment of the Board) allowed the appeal and held that the defendants were not liable for the fire damage. The appellants' vessel had negligently discharged furnace oil into Sydney Harbour. The oil spread and accumulated around the respondents' wharf. The respondents were aware of the oil but, having been assured by experts that furnace oil could not ignite on water, continued welding operations. Molten metal or sparks ignited cotton waste floating on the oil, causing a fire that destroyed the wharf and vessels berthed there. The Privy Council comprehensively overruled Re Polemis, which had held that a tortfeasor was liable for all direct consequences of their negligence even if unforeseeable. Viscount Simonds held that it was illogical and unjust to impose unlimited liability based purely on directness of consequence. The proper test was whether the kind of damage suffered was reasonably foreseeable. On the facts, while the oil spillage was foreseeable, fire damage from the ignition of furnace oil floating on water was not — the evidence showed that experts regarded such ignition as practically impossible. The defendants were accordingly not liable for the fire. The Board emphasised that the duty of care, the standard of breach, and the reach of liability should all be governed by the same foreseeability principle to produce a coherent scheme.
Citas clave
"It does not seem consonant with current ideas of justice or morality that for an act of negligence, however slight or venial, which results in some trivial foreseeable damage the actor should be liable for all consequences however unforeseeable and however grave, so long as they can be said to be 'direct'."
— Viscount Simonds at 422
"The essential factor in determining liability is whether the damage is of such a kind as the reasonable man should have anticipated."
— Viscount Simonds at 426
"It is not the act but the consequences on which tortious liability is founded. For the same act may make the actor liable or not liable according as the consequences were or were not foreseeable."
— Viscount Simonds at 425
Tratamiento posterior
Followed as the definitive statement of the remoteness test in negligence. Applied by the House of Lords in Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963] AC 837, where the kind of harm (burning) was foreseeable even if the precise mechanism (explosion) was not.
Applied in Doughty v Turner Manufacturing Co Ltd [1964] 1 QB 518 (CA), where the court held that chemical explosion caused by an asbestos lid falling into molten metal was not foreseeable in kind and thus not recoverable, following Wagon Mound.
Followed in Wagon Mound No 2 [1967] 1 AC 617 (PC) — the same oil spill litigated in negligence and nuisance by the ship-owners, where the Privy Council held that the risk of fire, while very small, was a real risk and not so improbable as to be ignored by a reasonable person.
What To Do Next
Step-by-Step Guides
Know Your Rights
Get Professional Help