A positive act causing physical harm to persons or property

Example: A, a music teacher, leases the top floor of a five storey building to use as a teaching studio. The lifts to the upper floors are serviced every month by B, a maintenance engineer. One day, B sees that the main cable of one lift has been badly damaged and needs replacing. By mistake, B orders and installs the wrong cable and, two weeks later, it snaps. The lift drops a few feet before emergency brakes halt the descent with a severe jolt. A, who was in the lift on her way to her studio, bumps against the handrail in the lift. As a result, she fractures a bone in her arm and drops her valuable guitar, which splits and breaks.

Comment:  Physical harm has long been recognised as giving rise to liability for Negligence. Physical harm consists of either injury to a plaintiff's person, or damage to their property. In this case, there has been both physical harm to A's person (her broken arm) and harm to her property (her broken guitar).