> I'm not sure that the claimant's subjective reasoning process should be
> relevant to whether the defendant owed a duty.

It is a question of what makes the defendant's conduct negligent vis a vis
the claimant. If we think that supplying eggs without warning by caterers
is not generally negligent per se vis a vis potential consumers (and I
think that is probably correct, unlike the case of nuts) what made it
potentially negligent vis a vis this claimant was that on this occasion he
would not take the normal precautions someone with an egg allergy would,
because it was food in a Sikh temple. That is why Moor-Bick LJ stresses
this point at para 25 (which I extracted) and why he thinks this case is
'unusual'. If the deceased was unaware of his egg allergy or if, as Steve
suggests, he was the sort of person who thought "My doctor says I
shouldn't risk eating eggs, but I don't listen to doctors" then his death
was not wrongful as it was not the sort of injury the caterer had a duty
to protect him from suffereing.

Negligence 'in the air' is not enough, so if the claimant had died because
he had slipped on some of the eggy ras malai spilled on the floor, no
claim.

Rob
--
Robert Stevens
Professor of Commercial Law
University College London