Introduction to Fire Safety Management

Duty of ‘reasonable care’ breached
The second test of negligence is that there is a breach of 
the duty of reasonable care. In order to demonstrate that 
there is a breach, a claimant must prove that the defend-
ant negligently did something or omitted to do some-
thing that a reasonable man would do. This appears to 
be a somewhat circular argument; however, the courts 
use the case of 
Blythe
v. 
Birmingham Waterworks Co
. 
(1856) as the test of whether the duty of reasonable care 
has in fact been breached. In that case the judge set the 
precedent that:
Negligence is the omission to do something 
which a reasonable man, guided upon those 
considerations which obviously regulate the 
conduct of human affairs, would do or some-
thing which the prudent and reasonable man 
would not do.
This defi nition itself raises two further questions which 
the court must decide, i.e.:
1. What is a reasonable man?
2. What are those considerations?
What is a reasonable man?
A reasonable man is defi ned in the case 
Glasgow
Corporation
v. 
Muir
as:
An imaginary being who is neither imprudent 
nor over cautious . . . he is in effect the man 
on the Clapham omnibus.
It is therefore the behaviour of a hypothetical (aver-
age) person that courts have to consider when decid-
ing whether or not the standard of ‘reasonable care’ has 
been achieved.
An important factor is that the standard of reason-
able care owed varies dependent upon the skill, experi-
ence and competence of the person so that the standard 
of care owed by the skilled, experienced, competent 
person is greater than that expected from the unskilled, 
inexperienced, less competent person. The same can be 
said for an organisation, namely the employer who owes 
a duty of reasonable care to employees and others.
For example, the level of care taken by a young 
person working as a trainee chef in a busy kitchen may 
not be the same as the chef. The courts would expect 
the chef to be able and motivated to take more care, 
therefore the standard for the chef is higher than for the 
trainee.
What are those considerations?
The considerations that guide the reasonable man relate 
to the degree of risk associated with the activity and the 
cost incurred in averting the risk.
Risk is a combination of the likelihood of injury or 
harm and the severity of the injury or harm risked: