Authored By :Meher Jahan Aiman
Premier university Chittagong
Court Name & Bench
House of Lords (United Kingdom) The highest appellate court of the time, personification of judicial power in the development of common law.
The bench was a distinguished division comprising Lord Buckmaster (dissenting leader), Lord Atkin (majority pioneer), Lord Tomlin (dissenting), Lord Thankerton (majority), and Lord Macmillan (majority)—a five-lord panel reflecting diverse legal philosophies.
Date of Judgment
26 May 1932—A date etched in legal history, marking the beginning of modern negligence doctrine amidst the consumer risks of industrial Britain.
Parties Involved
Appellant: Mrs. May Donoghue (M’Alister) was an impoverished Paisley resident suing as a pauper. The analogous figure for the vulnerable consumer who is injured by a defective product without direct contractual recourse.
Respondent (Defendant): David Stevenson, a manufacturer of ginger beer in Paisley, against liability for an extension in the chain of distribution of mass-produced goods.
Facts of the Case
On 26 August 1928, Mrs. Donoghue visited Paisley’s Wellmeadow Café with a friend. The friend ordered a bottle of Stevenson’s ginger beer from proprietor Minchella and shared the contents with Donoghue. The bottle was made of opaque
1 Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL).
glass so that its contents could not be seen. After consuming some of the bottle’s contents mixed with ice cream, the remainder was poured into the glass, revealing the decomposed remains of a snail. Donoghue claimed to have suffered severe nervous shock, gastroenteritis, and medical distress due to Stevenson’s negligent manufacture.
Lacking privity with Stevenson, she instituted proceedings in delict (negligence) against them in Scotland’s Court of Session. The Lord Ordinary allowed proof (a factual trial); the Second Division dismissed for lack of causation. This appeal to the House of Lords tested the boundaries of this area of tort law at a time when product packaging was non-transparent.
Issues Raised
Core Issue: Whether a manufacturer is under a tortious duty of care to ultimate consumers for latent defects in non-inspectable products, absent contractual privity, in cases where harm is reasonably foreseeable.
Subsidiary Issue: Does Scots law of negligence, as well as that of England, extend liability beyond fraud or inherent danger by adapting the common law to industrial realities?
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant’s Arguments (Donoghue)
Duty of Care from Foreseeability: Manufacturers marketing goods in sealed containers foresee injury to consumers as a result of negligence, and the inability to inspect the contents of opaque bottles creates both reliance and proximity. 2
Highlighted public health imperatives in wide distribution of goods.
Precedential Support: Drew on Heaven v Pender for situational duties3 and George v Skivington for noxious goods analogies,4 substituting negligence for fraud. Invoked
2 Ibid 580–81 (Lord Atkin).
3 Heaven v Pender (1883) 11 QBD 503, 509 (Brett MR).
4 George v Skivington (1869) LR 5 Ex 1.
implied warranties under the Sale of Goods Act 1893 but pivoted to pure tort, arguing fraud was unnecessary.5
Policy Appeal: Unlimited privity would immunize manufacturers, defeating justice; negligence alone is sufficient for accountability.
Respondent’s Arguments (Stevenson)
Privity Limitation: Liability confined to contractual parties; third-party extensions risk “floodgates” of unmanageable claims. 6
Precedential Defense: Relied on Winterbottom v. Wright barring stranger actions7 and Dominion Natural Gas Co. v. Collins restricting duties to inherently dangerous items.8 Dismissed George v. Skivington as fraud-specific; latent defects require knowledge. 9
Practical Concerns: Ginger beer is not dangerous, per se; similar rejections like Mullen v Barr reveal uninsurable burdens, preserving trade stability.10 Law resists expansion for novel conditions.
- Judgment
Accordingly, there was a razor-thin majority of 3:2. The appeal was allowed, with Lords Buckmaster and Tomlin dissenting and Lords Atkin, Thankerton, and Macmillan in the majority. The Second Division’s dismissal was overturned, and the Lord Ordinary’s proof order was reinstated. The case returned for factual trial; no damages yet, but costs favored Donoghue. This judgment broke barriers of privity, thereby giving birth to expansive negligence.
5 Sale of Goods Act 1893, s 14.
6 Donoghue (n 1) 576 (Lord Buckmaster).
7 Winterbottom v Wright (1842) 10 M & W 109.
8 Dominion Natural Gas Co Ltd v Collins [1909] AC 640, 646 (Lord Dunedin).
9 Longmeid v Holliday (1851) 6 Ex 761.
10 Mullen v AG Barr & Co Ltd 1929 SC 461, 479 (Lord Anderson).
Legal Reasoning
The Lords agreed Scots-English laws of negligence harmonized, focusing on the existence of a duty based on assumed facts being true for relevancy.11 This was a split decision that pitted conservatism against progressive adaptation; it analytically dissected precedents to forge—or resist—a consumer-centric tort framework. While the majority’s innovation-foreseeability-driven duty analytically bridged rigid common law gaps, the dissent guarded against commercial peril.
Dissenting Opinions
Lord Buckmaster (Lord Tomlin reading his speech): Bound by the precedent’s rigidity, there is no general manufacturer duty to non-contractuals; the law only develops soberly, not for “meritorious” outliers.12 Distinguish the cases: Winterbottom v Wright holds recovery only to contractors;13 Longmeid v Holliday holds latent defect duties need knowledge.14 Criticized George v Skivington as bound by fraud and not negligence-analogous;15 Heaven v Pender dicta overstretched and subsequently qualified in Le Lievre v Gould.16 Argued floodgates per Mullen v. Barr, holding ginger beer not dangerous—the latter position analytically privileging stability but swathed in criticism for having overlooked asymmetries in mass production.17
Lord Tomlin: Agreed with Buckmaster that there is no extension that might disrupt trade in the absence of authority, Earl v Lubbock.18 The analytical point, therefore, was that the sanctity of privity was reinforced against the vagaries of duties.
11 Donoghue (n 1) 578.
12 Ibid 574.
13 Winterbottom (n 7) 115 (Alderson B).
14 Longmeid (n 9) 768 (Parke B).
15 George (n 4); Donoghue (n 1) 577.
16 Le Lievre v Gould [1893] 1 QB 491, 497 (Lord Esher MR); Mullen (n 10).
17 Donoghue (n 1) 581.
18 Earl v Lubbock [1905] 1 KB 253, 259 (Mathew LJ).
Majority Opinions
Lord Atkin: The neighbour principle was an example of a masterful creation of enduring ratio. Duty to “take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions that you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour” — neighbours being “persons closely and directly affected” in contemplation.19 This was abstractly universalized, as duty is analytically in the context of sealed products. Manufacturers foresee consumer harm without inspection; it passes beyond privity.20 He distinguished fraud precedents and made appealing use of U.S. cases such as Thomas v Winchester, mislabelled poison,21 and MacPherson v Buick, a defective wheel.22 Global progressivism is synthesized. Policy: Health protection sans chaos; proximity limits scope. A fundamental reversal from caveat emptor, yet subject to foreseeability’s subjectivity.23
Lord Thankerton: Fortified Atkin, emphasizing manufacturer’s control and customer vulnerability; obscure design creates “special relation,” allowing duty without deceit.24 Applied George v. Skivington; analytically limited by intent of distribution, assuaging dissent’s concern.25
Lord Macmillan argued for the fluidity of the law: Negligence “categories are never closed” and are open to modernity.26 Duty arises from the manufacturer and consumer relationship, without need for contract or risk-proneness—one need only consider foresight.27 Extended Langridge v Levy;28 policy consistent between responsibility and reasonableness, looking towards statutory developments. Conceptually, it highlighted the rigidity of the minority’s doctrine, applying fairness in relation to industry.29
19 Donoghue (n 1) 580.
20 Ibid 582–99.
21 Thomas v Winchester 6 NY 397 (1852).
22 MacPherson v Buick Motor Co 217 NY 382 (1916).
23 Donoghue (n 1) 599; cf Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605 (refining test). 24 Donoghue (n 1) 602–07.
25 George (n 4).
26 Donoghue (n 1) 619.
27 Ibid 620–22.
28 Langridge v Levy (1837) 2 M & W 519.
29 Donoghue (n 1) 622.
Ratio Decidendi: Duty of care is owed whenever it is foreseeable that one’s actions will cause injury to proximate parties; this has become a landmark in the development of product liability. Precedents synthesized: The majority reconciled inconsistencies in the existing case law and produced a test that was at once resilient and flexible; the dissenting literalism served to underscore interpretive divides, underlining tension between tradition and the needs of contemporary society.
Observations
This landmark magnum opus—the so-called “snail in the bottle” case—transcends the modest factual premise upon which it was decided, constructing the edifice of negligence through the neighbour principle of Atkin.30 Analytically, it destroyed the fortress of privity and gave consumers a potent remedy against industrial anonymity; its influence extended worldwide, as witnessed by the expansion of liability in U.S. decisions and the adoptions into the laws of other members of the Commonwealth.31 Statutes such as the UK Consumer Protection Act 1987—imposing strict liability32— and EU directives aimed inter alia at supply chain opaqueness have responded to the problem. Critically, while prescient in preventing harm, the elasticity of foresight invites judicial discretion—a double-edged sword that balances innovation against predictability. In 2025’s digital era, it has found an analogical application in AI/algorithmic liabilities,33 underlining again law’s adaptive spirit. Dispassionately, the triumph of equity over formalism, Tort’s Magna Carta, has attained an iconic status.
30 Ibid 580.
31See e.g. Grant v Australian Knitting Mills [1936] AC 85 (applying principle).
32 Consumer Protection Act 1987, s 2
33 Cf Bolam v Friern Hospital Management
