First Principles of Business Law

12. Negligence

12 (b) 1.3. Establishing a duty of care: Foreseeing who might be harmed

A is working in his front garden, building a low wall down the side of his driveway. At mid-morning he becomes thirsty. He leaves his tools and a wheelbarrow half full of bricks where they are while he goes into the house to get a drink of water. While he is inside, B, a 5-year-old boy who has wandered out of a neighbouring house, walks past A's open gate. B sees A's equipment and wanders in to explore. He tries to climb into the wheelbarrow but unbalances it. B's leg is broken when the wheelbarrow and bricks fall on top of him.

D, a passerby who is walking on the other side of the street, is so busy staring at the scene in A's garden that he walks into a lamp-post and breaks his nose.  A denies liability to B and D because, he says, neither of them were people who he should have foreseen might suffer harm as a result of his conduct. Which one of the following statements is most likely to be correct in the circumstances?

(a) B was a person who might foreseeably suffer harm in this situation, but not D.

(b) D was a person who might foreseeably suffer harm in this situation, but not B.

(c) Neither B nor D were persons who might foreseeably suffer harm in this situation.