AQA A-Level Law: Tort (7162)

This guide covers 3.3 Tort, the third of five subject-content sections in AQA A-level Law (7162), first teaching September 2017. It is examined on Paper 2, where it carries 75 of the paper’s 100 marks alongside 25 marks on the nature of law and the English legal system, and shares its applied-problem-question technique with the specification’s other substantive law topics. These notes complement the site’s guides to The Nature of Law and the English Legal System and General Elements of Criminal Liability.

Where this fits in 7162

Tort law governs civil liability between individuals – primarily claims for negligence – distinct from Criminal Law’s focus on offences against the state. The reasoning technique carries across from Criminal Law (identify the relevant rule, apply it to the facts, reach a conclusion) but the substantive content here is entirely new: duty of care, breach, causation, and a set of specific torts beyond negligence.

Syllabus coverage

AQA A-LEVEL LAW (7162) – 3.3 TORT

• The rules of tort law: liability and fault in negligence, occupiers’ liability, nuisance and vicarious liability, plus associated defences and remedies
• Theory of tort law: the public policy factors governing the imposition of a duty of care (the Caparo three-part test) for physical injury and property damage; policy factors governing liability for pure economic loss and psychiatric injury; the factors governing the objective standard of care; the factors governing the grant of an injunction; the nature and purpose of vicarious liability
• Liability in negligence for physical injury and property damage: duty of care (the ‘neighbour’ principle; the Caparo three-part test); breach of duty (the objective standard of care); damage (factual causation and legal causation/remoteness of damage)
• Liability in negligence for economic loss and psychiatric injury: pure economic loss caused by negligent acts and negligent misstatements; psychiatric injury sustained by primary and secondary victims
• Occupiers’ liability: liability to visitors (Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957) and to trespassers (Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984)
• Nuisance and the escape of dangerous things: private nuisance; the rule in Rylands v Fletcher
• Vicarious liability: nature and purpose; testing employment status; other areas of application
• Defences: contributory negligence; consent (volenti non fit injuria); defences specific to private nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher
• Remedies: compensatory damages for physical injury, property damage and economic loss; mitigation of loss; injunctions

How to approach it

Negligence is the backbone of this topic and the model for almost everything else in it: duty, breach, causation, in that fixed order, every time. Learn that three-stage structure so thoroughly that it becomes automatic, then treat occupiers’ liability, nuisance and vicarious liability as variations that either replace or add to one of those three stages (occupiers’ liability replaces the general duty of care with a statutory one; vicarious liability adds a question about who else can be held liable, on top of an underlying tort).

Official syllabus

AQA A-level Law (7162) specification, first teaching September 2017 – aqa.org.uk.

Negligence: the three-stage test

Duty of care asks whether the law recognises an obligation between the parties at all – established either by precedent or, in novel situations, the Caparo three-part test. Breach asks whether the defendant fell below the objective standard of a reasonable person in their position. Damage asks whether the breach factually caused the harm, and whether that harm was a legally recognised, not too remote, consequence. A claim fails if any one of the three stages is not satisfied, regardless of how strong the other two are.

Beyond straightforward negligence: two special categories

Pure economic loss (financial loss unconnected to physical injury or damage) and psychiatric injury (harm not accompanied by physical injury) are both treated more restrictively than ordinary physical injury or property damage claims, for policy reasons – courts are wary of unlimited liability for purely financial consequences, and psychiatric injury claims are further split between primary victims (those in the actual danger zone) and secondary victims (witnesses), who face additional control mechanisms before a claim succeeds.

Occupiers’ liability: two Acts, two categories of claimant

The Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 governs liability to lawful visitors; the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984 governs the more limited liability owed to trespassers. Confusing which Act applies to which claimant is one of the most common structural errors in this section – the standard of care and the scope of duty differ meaningfully between the two.

Worked example: applying the negligence structure

The routine below is an original model written for this resource, not a reproduction of any official past paper or mark scheme.

Step 1 - identify the specific duty question:
Is this an established duty situation, or does Caparo need
applying?

Step 2 - assess breach against the objective standard:
What would a reasonable person in the defendant's position have
done?

Step 3 - test factual causation:
"But for" the breach, would the harm have occurred?

Step 4 - test legal causation (remoteness):
Was this type of harm a reasonably foreseeable consequence?

Step 5 - only then consider defences and remedies:
Contributory negligence or consent may reduce or defeat the claim
even where all three negligence elements are made out.

Step 5 is often missed under time pressure: candidates who establish negligence successfully sometimes forget that a defence can still reduce or entirely defeat an otherwise complete claim.

Common mistakes

Applying the Caparo test to situations where duty is already established by precedent (unnecessary and time-costing). Confusing the subjective and objective standards of care. Skipping legal causation (remoteness) after establishing factual causation. Applying the wrong Occupiers’ Liability Act to a trespasser or visitor. Treating vicarious liability as a standalone tort rather than a route to holding a second party liable for an underlying tort committed by someone else.

Quick revision checklist

• State and apply the three-stage negligence test: duty, breach, damage.
• Explain when and how the Caparo three-part test applies to a novel duty situation.
• Distinguish liability for pure economic loss and psychiatric injury from ordinary physical injury claims.
• Correctly match the 1957 or 1984 Occupiers’ Liability Act to the claimant’s status.
• Identify available defences and remedies, and apply them after (not instead of) the main tort analysis.