参考答案：

 An individual is not automatically liable for every negligent act that he or she commits and in order to sustain an action in negligence, it must be shown that the party at fault owed a duty of care to the person injured as a result of their actions. Consequently, the onus is on the claimant to establish that the respondent owed them a duty of care. The test for establishing whether a duty of care exists was initially set out in Donoghue v Stevenson (AICB), the snail in the ginger beer bottle case. In putting forward the test to establish a duty of care, Lord Atkin stated that:‘You must take reasonable care to avoid acts and omissions which you could reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law is my neighbour ... any person so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts and omissions which are called in question.’It can be seen that this neighbour test for deciding the existence of a duty of care is an objective, rather than a subjective, one. It is not a matter of what the respondent actually considered, but what they ought to have considered. Nor does the test require the contemplation of the resultant effect on the specific individual injured, but merely requires that identity of a class of individuals who might be injured as a consequence of the respondent’s lack of care. The idea of the neighbour, or proximity, test was extended in Hedley Byrne v Heller (AIFD), which established the possibility of liability for negligent misrepresentation causing economic loss, where a party gave inaccurate advice or information to another party, within a special relationship, and that party subsequently and reasonably relied on it. In Caparo Industries plc v Dickman (AII0), a three stage test for establishing a duty of care was recommended. This requires consideration of the following questions:– Was the harm caused reasonably foreseeable– Was there a relationship of proximity between the defendant and the claimant– In all the circumstances, is it just, fair and reasonable to impose a duty of care The present position appears to be that in establishing the existence of a duty of care in negligence, an incremental approach must be taken. The claimant must show that the defendant foresaw that damage would occur to the claimant, that is, that there was sufficient proximity in time, space and relationship between the claimant and the defendant. In practical terms, foreseeability of damage will determine proximity in the majority of personal injury cases. The courts will then, where appropriate, consider whether it is just and reasonable to impose a duty and whether there are any policy reasons for denying or limiting the existence of a duty, for example, under the floodgates argument.