Significance
The case was reviewed by Frederick Pollock in a 1933 edition of Law Quarterly Review, in which he commented that there was no doubt as to the importance of the decision and that "a notable step has been made in enlarging and clarifying our conception of a citizen's duty before the law ... not to turn dangerous or noxious things loose on the world". However, Donoghue otherwise attracted little attention; it was understood only as precedent that manufacturers were liable for injuries their goods cause their ultimate consumers rather than that there was a general principle of liability in negligence. The majority of the Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Cohen and Lord Justice Asquith) therefore held in Candler v Crane, Christmas & Co that Donoghue had not affected tortious liability for negligent misstatement. This narrow understanding of Donoghue changed with the cases of Hedley Byrne v Heller in 1963 and Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co in 1970.
Read more about this topic: Donoghue V Stevenson
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)