GRANT v AUSTRALIAN KNITTING MILLS, LTD [1936] AC 85, PC
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
The procedural history of the case: the Supreme Court of South Australia, the High Court of Australia.
Judges: Viscount Hailsham L.C., Lord Blanksnurgh, Lord Macmillan, Lord Wright and Sir Lancelot Sandreson.
The appellant: Richard Thorold Grant
The material facts of the case:
The underwear, consisting of two pairs of underpants and two siglets was bought by appellant at the shop of the respondents.
The retailer had purchased them with other stock from the manufacturer.
The appellant put on one suit and by the evening he felt itching on the ankles. Next day a redness appeared on each ankle. The appellant treated himself …show more content…
2) The decision treats negligence, where there is a duty to take care. In Donoghue's case the duty was deduced simply from the facts relied upon: article issued to the world, used by the party in the state in which it was prepared and issued without it being changed in any way and without there being any warning of, or means of, detecting, the hidden danger. There was no personal intercourse between the maker and the user; but the duty is personal, because it is inter partes (between parties), it needs no interchange of words, spoken or written, or signs of offer or assent. The want of care and the injury are in essence directly and intimately connected. The word 'control' in D. case is used to emphasise the essential factor that the consumer must use the article exactly as it left the maker, and used it as it was intended to be used (control, of the maker, until it is used - artificial, because they parted with all the control when they sold the article).
3) In D. case can only be applied when the defect is hidden and unknown to the consumer. The presence of the deleterious chemicals in the pants, due to negligence in manufacture, was a hidden and latent defect, just as much as the remains of the snail in the opaque bottle: it could not be detected by any examination that could reasonably be made. Nothing happened between the making of the garments and their being worn to change their condition. The garments were made by the manufacturers for the
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
The procedural history of the case: the Supreme Court of South Australia, the High Court of Australia.
Judges: Viscount Hailsham L.C., Lord Blanksnurgh, Lord Macmillan, Lord Wright and Sir Lancelot Sandreson.
The appellant: Richard Thorold Grant
The material facts of the case:
The underwear, consisting of two pairs of underpants and two siglets was bought by appellant at the shop of the respondents.
The retailer had purchased them with other stock from the manufacturer.
The appellant put on one suit and by the evening he felt itching on the ankles. Next day a redness appeared on each ankle. The appellant treated himself …show more content…
2) The decision treats negligence, where there is a duty to take care. In Donoghue's case the duty was deduced simply from the facts relied upon: article issued to the world, used by the party in the state in which it was prepared and issued without it being changed in any way and without there being any warning of, or means of, detecting, the hidden danger. There was no personal intercourse between the maker and the user; but the duty is personal, because it is inter partes (between parties), it needs no interchange of words, spoken or written, or signs of offer or assent. The want of care and the injury are in essence directly and intimately connected. The word 'control' in D. case is used to emphasise the essential factor that the consumer must use the article exactly as it left the maker, and used it as it was intended to be used (control, of the maker, until it is used - artificial, because they parted with all the control when they sold the article).
3) In D. case can only be applied when the defect is hidden and unknown to the consumer. The presence of the deleterious chemicals in the pants, due to negligence in manufacture, was a hidden and latent defect, just as much as the remains of the snail in the opaque bottle: it could not be detected by any examination that could reasonably be made. Nothing happened between the making of the garments and their being worn to change their condition. The garments were made by the manufacturers for the