Heaven v Pender (1883) 11 QBD 503
Facts
D, a dock owner, supplied and put up a staging outside a ship in his dock under a contract with the shipowner. C was a workman in the employ of a ship painter who had contracted with the shipowner to paint the outside of the ship. To do the painting, C went on and used the staging when one of the ropes by which it was slung, being unfit for use when supplied by D, broke and C fell into the dock and was injured. The ropes had been supplied by D as part of the machinery of the staging and there was evidence that they had been scorched and were unfit for use with safety at the time the staging was put up, and that reasonable care had not been taken by D as to their state and condition at the time.
Legal Issue
Did the dock owner owe reasonable care to a worker expected to use the supplied staging, despite the absence of a direct contract between them?
Held
The Court of Appeal found for the injured worker. The dock owner supplied staging for immediate use in the work and owed reasonable care concerning its condition when supplied. The defective rope caused the worker's fall. Brett MR proposed a broad formulation of a duty where one person's conduct could foreseeably endanger another, but the other judges did not adopt that general formulation as the basis of their decisions. They accepted a narrower duty arising from the particular supply and use of the equipment. The case therefore supports liability on those facts without establishing Brett MR's entire formulation as a unanimous general test.
⭐ Legal Principle
A supplier of equipment for immediate use may owe care to the expected user concerning its safety despite no direct contract. Brett MR's broader duty formulation in Heaven was influential, but was not adopted by the other judges as a general rule.
Significance
Heaven is important in the historical development of negligence before Donoghue v Stevenson. Its actual result and the scope of Brett MR's proposed principle must be kept separate. The export incorrectly said the defendant won, despite recording reasoning which imposed a duty. For students, the case illustrates how an influential judicial statement can help shape later law without every part becoming the ratio of the decision in which it first appeared.
Common exam questions about this case
Who succeeded in Heaven?
The injured worker succeeded because the dock owner owed care concerning the staging supplied for the expected work. The defective rope caused the injury. Describing the decision as a victory for the dock owner would reverse its outcome and obscure the reason the case appears in duty-of-care history.
Was Brett MR's broad formulation unanimously adopted?
No. The other judges accepted liability on a narrower basis linked to supplying the equipment for immediate use. Brett MR's general statement was influential, but must not be presented as the court's unanimous universal test. Authority analysis requires attention to the reasoning actually shared by the judges.
Why did lack of a direct contract not defeat the worker?
The equipment was supplied for use by workers performing the contemplated repairs. The duty concerned reasonable care in supplying safe staging for that use. Tort responsibility could therefore arise from the relationship and activity even though the injured worker had not contracted personally with the dock owner.