The accident was caused by a known source of danger and, despite the fact the damage came about in an unexpected way and was very serious, it was not too remote from the original negligence.

The claimant was injured while attempting to repair a boat left abandoned on the defendant’s land. The accident came about when the boat was raised on a jack and then slipped. The defendant was liable for the claimant’s paralysis.

The risk foreseeable from the defendant’s negligence in relation to the boat was categorized as physical injury. The defendant was a local authority; the claimant was a child and benefited from a widely framed concept of damage in this case.

Following a motor accident in a tunnel caused by the defendant’s negligence, a police officer gave an order which resulted in a second accident which injured the plaintiff. The defendant was held not to be liable for the second accident.

The action of the police officer constituted such an unreasonable departure from correct practice that it would be treated as a new act and the sole cause of the second accident.

Owing to lack of funds, the claimant was not able to mitigate his loss in the most financially efficient way. The defendant was still held to be liable for the relatively higher costs of car hire.

Lagden illustrates what has been described as the ‘financial thin skull rule’; that is, if rather than a physical weakness the claimant has financial difficulties, the defendant cannot limit his liability for the full extent of the claimant’s loss. He must take his victim as he finds him.

The plaintiff had been injured owing to the defendant’s negligence. Some weeks later he put himself in a situation dangerous to someone with his injury. He fell and suffered further damage. The defendant was not liable for the second injury.

The plaintiff’s behaviour, because it was unreasonable, was treated as an intervening act which broke the chain of causation between the defendant’s negligence and the ultimate damage.

A careless oil spill in a harbour led debris floating on the water to be ignited by sparks from welding. The resulting fire was held to be too remote and not actionable in negligence.

The new test was to be applied for remoteness of causation: that of reasonable foreseeability. In this case oil pollution was foreseeable, but fire was not.

A prisoner committed suicide in a police cell owing to the failure of the police to properly supervise him. The police were held liable in negligence.

Despite the fact that the prisoner had committed a voluntary and direct act, it had not broken the chain of causation. The defendant was liable because the damage that occurred was precisely that which his duty of care required him to prevent.

The plaintiff suffered a work-related injury when his lip was burned by molten metal. It interacted with a pre-existing condition and he developed cancer. The employer was held to be liable not only for the burn, which was foreseeable, but for the unforeseeable cancer because it was due to an inherent weakness in the plaintiff.

An illustration of the way that the ‘thin skull’ or eggshell skull principle operates in favour of a plaintiff whose injury is worse than that which was foreseeable owing to some inherent physical condition or weakness.

The plaintiff fell while walking down a step, due to wearing a surgical collar necessitated by an injury caused by the defendant’s negligence. The defendant was held liable for both the first and second injuries.

Unlike that of McKew, the plaintiff’s action was not unreasonable and so did not break the chain of causation.