The imposition of duties of care by third parties in tort

Abstract

The privity rule has give rise to many criticisms due to its injustice and inconvenience. In realizing this situation, various means or mechanisms were available to circumvent the privity rule including tort of negligence. Nevertheless, it may have its own weakness that is; it is difficult to establish a duty of care owed by promisor in recovering of pure economic loss claim. Hence, this dissertation intends to examine the claims by third parties in tort and look into their problems in imposing a duty of care owed by the promisors. By adopting the judicial decision from various cases, the scope of this research is confined with the third parties claim namely contractors or builders, owners or subsequent owners and purchasers or subsequent purchasers. The findings revealed that of 21 cases, only five managed to prove a duty of care owed by professional man, whereas the rest proved otherwise. To recap, the recovery of claims by third parties remains difficult and we might concluded that tort of negligence provides uncertainties in protecting their rights. Indirectly, it was not an effective mechanism to circumvent the privity rule?s problems as yet it was inadequately protecting third-party's rights in certain situations. Therefore, they may utilize this research as guidance so that, they have a better understanding in relation to its operation.