Scots delict law

Delict in Scots Law is, amongst other things, the responsibility to make reparation caused by breach of a duty of care or, arguably, the duty to refrain from committing such breaches. The equivalent in English law and other common law jurisdictions is known as tort law.

Delict is borrowed from Latin delictum and, as a branch of Scots law, revolves around the fundamental concept damnum injuria datum - literally loss wrongfully caused. Where A has suffered wrongful loss at the hands of B (generally where B was negligent), B is under a legal obligation to make reparation. There are many various delicts which can be committed, ranging from assault to procurement or breach of contract.

Delict deals with the righting of legal wrongs in civil law on the principle of liability for loss caused by failure in the duty of care, whether deliberate or accidental. While it broadly covers the same ground as the English law of tort, the Scots law is different in many respects and concentrates more on general principle and less on specific wrongs. While some terms such as assault and defamation are used in both systems, their technical meanings differ.

The landmark decision on establishing negligence, for Scotland and for the rest of the United Kingdom, is the House of Lords appeal case, Donoghue v. Stevenson 1932 AC 562, 1932 SC (HL) 31, 1932 SLT 317.

Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), also known as "The Paisley Snail case", is considered to have defined the concept of duty of care. Mrs Donoghue was in a cafe in Paisley where she consumed a bottle of ginger beer which contained a decomposing snail in an opaque bottle. The snail was invisible to the naked eye until the contents of the bottle had been almost completely consumed. Consequently, she suffered serious gastric problems. To whom do we owe a duty of care? Donoghue says that we owe this duty to our neighbours:

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