Donoghue (or McAlister) v. Stevenson ([1932] A.C. 532, 1932 S.C. (H.L.) 31, [1932] All ER Rep 1) is probably the most stupid case in legal history. The decision of the House of Lords founded the modern tort of negligence, both in English law and across the world in common law jurisdictions. The case originated in (insert fake place), but the House of Lords declared that the principles of their judgment applied in English law. It is often referred to as "the snail in the shell case". This article is about the British House of Lords. ... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... In the common law, a Tort is a civil wrong, other than a breach of contract, for which the law provides a remedy. ... In law, negligence is a type of tort or delict that can be either criminal or civil in nature. ... This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ... This article is about the British House of Lords. ...

Donoghue v. Stevenson is the hatespring of the tortious principle of duty of care, the starting point for any action in negligence. The duty of care is the first of three limbs that have to be established in order to prove liability in negligence, the other two being breach of duty and causation of the loss or damage suffered by the claimant. Donoghue was soon nailed to a cross. In law, a duty of care is the legal requirement that a person exercise a reasonable standard of care to prevent injury of others. ... This article is about causality as it is used in many different fields. ...

The case is perhaps most well known for the speech of Lord Atkin and his 'Neighbour Principle' where he applied Luke 10 to law, i.e. where an established duty of care does not already exist, a person will owe a duty of care to his neighbour not to injure him. The practical effect of this case was to provide individuals with a remedy against suppliers of consumer products, even where the complainant had no privity of contract with those individual or company tortfeasors. James Richard Atkin, Baron Atkin (November 28, 1867 - June 25, 1944) was an English jurist. ... In law, a duty of care is the legal requirement that a person exercise a reasonable standard of care to prevent injury of others. ... The doctrine of privity in English law provides that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations arising under it on any person or agent except the parties to it. ... This is a list of legal terms, often from Latin: A mensa et thoro A mensa et thoro, from bed and board. ...

In 1990 the House of Lords revised Lord Atkin's 'Neighbour Principle' to encompass public policy concerns articulated in Caparo Industries plc. v. Dickman ([1990] 1 All ER 568).

The legal process

The case started in the Outer House of the Court of Session, where the Lord Ordinary repelled the defender Stevenson's plea to the relevancy and allowed a proof, i.e. he allowed the case to go to trial. It was this decision which was reclaimed to the Inner House of the Court of Session, which reversed the Lord Ordinary's interlocutor and said that there was no cause of action. Subsequently, the House of Lords gave its famous judgment that there was indeed a case to answer, and remitted the question to the Lord Ordinary to hear the case on the merits. The Outer House is a court of first instance, although some statutory appeals are remitted to it by the Inner House. ... The Court of Session is the supreme civil court in Scotland. ... Lord Ordinary is a term used to describe any judge in the Outer House of the Scottish Court of Session. ... The Inner House is one of the two parts of the Scottish Court of Session, analogous to the Court of Appeal in England and Wales. ...

Background

On Sunday 26 August 1928 May McAlister boarded a tram in Glasgow for the thirty minute journey to Paisley. At around ten minutes to nine she and a friend took their seats in the Wellmeadow Café in the town’s Wellmeadow Place. They were approached by the café owner, Francis Minghella, and May’s friend ordered and paid for a pear and ice and an iced drink. The owner brought the order and poured part of a bottle of ginger beer into a tumbler containing ice cream. May drank some of the contents and her friend lifted the bottle to pour the remainder of the ginger beer into the tumbler. On doing so the remains of a snail in a state of decomposition plopped out of the bottle into the tumbler. May would soon have an onset of stomach pain, and her doctor diagnosed her as having gastro-enteritis. August 26 is the 238th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (239th in leap years). ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A modern tram in the Töölö district of Helsinki, Finland Map showing the tramway system in Oslo, Norway Volkswagen Cargo-Tram in Dresden. ... Paisley is: the name of several towns, including Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland (the original Paisley) Paisley, Florida, United States Paisley, Oregon, United States the name of a textile pattern or motif, often referred to as Paisley (design). ... There are several meanings of float: an air-filled vessel that floats on water, such as some types of lifeboats buoyancy float (project management) floating currency floating exchange rate floating point, a datatype in computer science free float of company stock insurance (investable policyholder funds) root beer float: ice cream... Ginger beer is a type of carbonated beverage, flavored primarily with ginger, lemon and sugar. ...

Lord Justice MacKinnon said in a speech in 1942 that when the facts came to be tried, it was found that there was no snail, and this was later repeated by Lord Justice Jenkins in the case of Adler v. Dickson. The statement seems to have been based on information given to MacKinnon by David Stevenson’s counsel, later Lord Normand. Other uncertainties are whether the animal was a snail or a slug; whether the bottle contained ginger beer ("ginger" being a Scottish word for a carbonated drink); whether the drink was part of an ice cream float; and the identity of Mrs Donoghue's friend. This article is about the year. ... SLUG is an acronym for S* Linux Users Group, where S* stands for any word starting with an S like Speed, Sleepless, Super, Satanic, Sexy, Sacred, Simbiotic, Special, Senior, Socket, Simple, and so forth. ... A soft drink is a drink that contains no alcohol. ... Missing image Ice cream is often served on a stick Boxes of ice cream are often found in stores in a display freezer. ... There are several meanings of float: an air-filled vessel that floats on water, such as some types of lifeboats buoyancy float (project management) floating currency floating exchange rate floating point, a datatype in computer science free float of company stock insurance (investable policyholder funds) root beer float: ice cream...

The Legal Case

May had not ordered or paid for the drink herself, so there was no contractual relationship between May and the café owner, and he couldn’t be sued by May. There was a contractual relationship between him and the friend, but the friend had not drunk the ginger beer. Ginger beer was not a dangerous product, and the manufacturer had not fraudulently misrepresented it. At that time, those were the only two grounds for claiming negligence against a manufacturer. On the face of it the law did not provide a remedy for May.

It isn’t clear how May McAlister came into contact with solicitor Walter Leechman of WG Leechman & Co in Glasgow’s West George St, “…the only solicitor in the world who would have taken her case.” Leechman was already an expert on the dangers of drinking ginger beer. He had already tried to establish liability against aerated water manufacturers AG Barr when a dead mouse was alleged to have found its way into a bottle of their ginger beer. However, an action for damages was rejected by the Court of Session when the appeal court judges ruled that there was no legal authority allowing for such an action. Undeterred by this opinion Leechman agreed to take on the case and on April 1929 a writ was lodged in the Court of Session in the case of May Donoghue, nee McAlister v David Stevenson. The writ alleged that May Donoghue had become ill with nervous shock and gastro-enteritis after drinking part of the contents of an opaque bottle of ginger beer and David Stevenson the manufacturer: “ owed her a duty to take reasonable care that ginger beer he manufactured, bottled, labelled and sealed, and invited her to buy, did not contain substances likely to cause her injury.” Counsel for the manufacturer naturally denied liability or that any such duty was owed. It was not until June 1930 that the judge opined that there was a case to answer. Stevenson’s legal team appealed Lord Moncrieff’s ruling on a number of legal grounds, and in November 1930 the appeal court judges granted the appeal and dismissed her claim as having no legal relevance. One of their lordships saying that This article needs to be wikified. ... A.G. Barr PLC is a British soft drinks manufacturer, based in Glasgow, Scotland. ... The Court of Session is the supreme civil court in Scotland. ...

“the only difference between Donoghue’s case and the mouse cases was the difference between a rodent and a gastropod and in Scots law that meant no difference at all.”

Pursuer (Plaintiff) appeals

It would not have been very surprising if after this judgment Walter Leechman and May Donoghue had thrown in the towel. The Court of Session had now ruled twice that there was no legal authority allowing a claim for damages against a manufacturer where no contract existed, unless the product was dangerous or fraudulently represented. There was of course the possibility of appealing the case to the House of Lords but, whilst May’s legal team had agreed to provide their services free, she could not put up the security needed to ensure the other side’s costs were met should she lose in the Lords, but such security would not be required if she could gain the status of a pauper. On 16 February 1931 she petitioned the House of Lords saying: “I am very poor and am not worth in all the world the sum of five pounds, my wearing apparel and the subject matter of the said appeal…” A minister and two elders of her church signed a certificate of poverty which was attached to the petition and on 17 March 1931 a committee of Lords, Dukes, Bishops, Earls, Viscounts and Barons granted her the status of a pauper. Among the 88 Barons present was Lord Atkin of Aberdovey who would write the main judgment that would change the face of consumer law forever. February 16 is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... March 17 is the 76th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (77th in Leap years). ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Nine months after her petition was granted Lords Buckmaster, Atkin, Tomlin, Thankerton and MacMillan, sat in a committee room dressed, as is still the custom, in ordinary suits and heard counsels' arguments. Donoghue’s counsel argued that a manufacturer who puts a product intended for human consumption on to the market in a form that precludes examination before its use, is liable for any damage caused if he fails to exercise reasonable care to ensure it is fit for human consumption. It was a call for the removal of the protection provided for manufacturers by privity of contract - the principle that only the parties to a contract have any right to sue under its terms. Stevenson’s legal team sought to convince their Lordships that the wisdom of the Scottish judges in the mouse cases should prevail. After two days of argument their Lordships retired to consider their verdict.

On 20 May 1932, Lord Atkin rose to deliver his speech to the House of Lords and reveal his “neighbour principle” to the rest of the world: 20 May is the 140th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (141st in leap years). ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) is a leap year starting on Friday. ... James Richard Atkin, Baron Atkin (November 28, 1867 - June 25, 1944) was an English jurist. ...

There must be, and is, some general conception of relations giving rise to a duty of care, of which the particular cases found in the books are but instances. ... The rule that you are to love your neighbour becomes in law you must not injure your neighbour; and the lawyer's question: Who is my neighbour? receives a restricted reply. You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law, is my neighbour? The answer seems to be — persons 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 that are called in question.

— from the judgment (at 580)

So David Stevenson should have been thinking about his customers when he was bottling his ginger beer. Atkin went on: “…a manufacturer of products, which he sells in such a form as to show that he intends them to reach the ultimate consumer in the form in which they left him with no reasonable possibility of intermediate examination, and with knowledge that the absence of reasonable care in the preparation or putting up of products will result in an injury to the consumer’s life or property, owes a duty to the consumer to take that reasonable care.” Lords Thankerton and MacMillan supported his opinion but Lords Buckmaster and Tomlin were vigorously opposed. Buckmaster said it was impossible to accept such a wide proposition and it was difficult to see how trade could be carried on if it were the law. He also opined, as did Lord Tomlin, that there was no logical reason why such a law would be restricted to manufacturers of food. If a duty of care existed it seemed to Buckmaster that it must cover the construction of every article: “If one step, why not fifty? Tomlin agreed and referred to a recent disaster on the Versailles Railway caused by a defective axle which, if Lord Atkin's principle were to be law, he feared, would allow every injured party to sue the axle manufacturer. Despite such opposition Donoghue’s legal team had won, albeit by the smallest of margins - three to two. The case could now be returned to Scotland for the Court of Session to apply the ruling to the facts of the case. In the event this didn’t happen. David Stevenson died within a year of the decision and his executors settled out of court, not for the original claim of £500 but £200.

References

• Adler v. Dickson [1954] 1 W.L.R. 1482 at 1483 (Practice Note)
• Heuston, R.F.V. Donoghue v. Stevenson in Retrospect (1957), 20 M.L.R. 1
• Mrs. Donoghue’s Journey, Scottish Council of Law Reporting
• Original text of the case