Crossley v Rawlinson [1981] 1 WLR 369
FORESEEABILITY OF HARM – DUTY OF CARE – REMOTENESS
Facts
The defendant, a lorry driver, stopped his vehicle when the tarpaulin covering his load caught fire. The fire was accepted to be a consequence of the defendant’s negligence in fitting the tarpaulin. A nearby breakdown patrol worker ran to assist in putting out the blaze, but tripped in a pothole and fell. He sought to recover damages from the driver for his injuries, arguing that if it were not for the defendant’s negligence which had caused the fire, he would not have been hurt.
Issues
The issue was whether the patrol worker’s injuries were a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s negligence, and by extension whether they fell within the defendant’s duty of care.
Decision/Outcome
The court concluded that although it was foreseeable that someone might come to help extinguish the fire and might be injured in the course of doing so, it was not foreseeable that someone would be injured on the way to provide this assistance. Therefore, the plaintiff’s injuries fell outside the scope of the defendant’s duty of care.
However, this decision has been criticised as going against the general principle established in Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963] AC 837 that if there is foreseeability of the risk of some harm, this is sufficient to establish liability in negligence even if the harm which in fact materialises has come about in a different way or is more severe than that which was foreseeable.
Updated 19 March 2026
This case summary accurately reflects the decision in Crossley v Rawlinson [1981] 1 WLR 369 and the legal principles discussed remain good law. The summary correctly identifies the court’s reasoning on foreseeability and duty of care, and its reference to Hughes v Lord Advocate [1963] AC 837 as an established House of Lords authority on the ‘type of harm’ foreseeability principle is accurate. No subsequent statutory changes or later cases have overruled or materially altered the position as described. The tension between Crossley v Rawlinson and the broader principle from Hughes v Lord Advocate, noted in the article, continues to be acknowledged in academic commentary. Readers should be aware that foreseeability and remoteness in negligence have been further examined in later cases, including Wagon Mound (No 1) [1961] AC 388 (which predates the article but underpins the remoteness framework discussed) and Page v Smith [1996] AC 155, though none of these alter the specific analysis set out here. This summary remains broadly accurate for study purposes.
