Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock & Engineering Co Ltd (The Wagon Mound No 1)
[1961] AC 388
판결 이유
The test for remoteness of damage in negligence is reasonable foreseeability, not directness. A defendant is only liable for damage of a kind that a reasonable person would have foreseen.
사실관계
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.
판결 요약
The Privy Council held that the defendants were not liable for the fire damage. While the oil spillage was foreseeable, fire damage from the spillage of furnace oil on water was not reasonably foreseeable. The Re Polemis direct consequence test was overruled.
주요 인용문
"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."
— Viscount Simonds
후속 처리
Replaced the Re Polemis test. Now the definitive test for remoteness of damage in negligence.