Since the decomposed remains of a snail were found in a bottle of ginger beer in a Paisley cafe in 1928 (the famous case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] All ER Rep 1, which underpins the modern law of negligence) we have all been expected to take reasonable care not to injure our ‘neighbours’. And ‘neighbours’, of course, are not just ‘them as lives next door’.
As Lord Atkin said in Donoghue, neighbours for these purposes means those ‘who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question’.
Negligence: snails, golf clubs and tree roots
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