Mitchell v Glasgow City Council

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090218/mitche-1.htm

A (Scottish) decision of the House of Lords re-affirming the absence of

any general positive duty to aid others.

One local authority tenant violently beats another tenant to death. He

does this after having been written to and asked to meet the landlord to

discuss an earlier incident, and a notice of repossession.

The deceased's dependent bring a claim against the local authority

claiming that if the deceased had been warned of the letter summoning the

violent tenant, he would have been alerted to the possibility of violence

and would not have died.

House of Lords hold that although harm was foreseeable, there was no

positive duty at common law to warn the deceased. The claim under the

Human Rights Act based upon art 2 (right to life) was also struck out,

either because (per Lord Hope)there was no knowledge of a real and

immediate threat to life or because (per Lord Rodger) the local authority

qua landlord, unlike say a police force, is not the body upon whom the

duty is owed,

Most of the reasoning is good, save for some pretty feeble stuff about

'defensive practices' ([28]).

Rob