For a generation after Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605, the tripartite test of foreseeability, proximity and fairness, justice and reasonableness was widely treated as the default route to a duty of care. Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2018] UKSC 4 corrected that drift. Lord Reed, giving the leading judgment, restated the approach the courts in fact take: established categories of duty are applied by analogy, and the Caparo tripartite analysis is reserved for genuinely novel categories.
Officers of West Yorkshire Police attempted to arrest a suspected drug dealer in a busy Huddersfield street. During the struggle, the officers and the suspect collided with Mrs Robinson, a frail pedestrian in her seventies, knocking her to the ground and causing her injury. She sued the Chief Constable in negligence. The Court of Appeal had held that the police owed no duty of care, treating the case as falling within a broad police immunity. The Supreme Court allowed Mrs Robinson’s appeal and held that the officers did owe, and had breached, a duty of care.
The significance of Robinson lies less in the result than in the methodology. Lord Reed explained that the common law develops incrementally, by reasoning from established categories rather than applying a single universal test to every fact pattern. Where a category of duty is already recognised, a court applies it. Where the facts are an extension of an established category, the court reasons by analogy. Only where the case is genuinely novel does the court fall back on the three Caparo factors of foreseeability, proximity and what is fair, just and reasonable, and even then policy considerations are confined to the novel question rather than re-opening settled law.
The practical consequence is that many claims that might once have been argued as fresh Caparo cases are now resolved by analogy with a recognised category. A claim against an auditor by an investor is approached as an extension of Caparo itself. A claim against a solicitor by a disappointed beneficiary follows White v Jones [1995] 2 AC 207. A claim against a surveyor by a residential mortgage applicant follows Smith v Eric S Bush [1990] 1 AC 831. A claim concerning a negligent statement made for a known purpose follows Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller & Partners Ltd [1964] AC 465.
For background, see:
Professional indemnity claims often involve loss suffered by someone who is not the professional’s direct client. Before Robinson, defendants sometimes resisted such claims by inviting the court to re-run Caparo from first principles, hoping the third stage would close the door. After Robinson, that argument is harder to mount where the facts fall within an established category. The court asks whether the claim is an analogue of White v Jones, Smith v Eric S Bush, Caparo itself, or Hedley Byrne, and applies the established rule. Policy reconsideration is reserved for the genuinely novel.
An accountant prepares and signs off a set of accounts knowing they will be shown to a named bidder considering the purchase of the business. The bidder relies on the accounts, completes the acquisition, and later discovers a material misstatement. The bidder sues.
A court approaches the question by analogy. The category is auditor liability to a known recipient for a known purpose, recognised in Caparo and developed in the cases that followed. Proximity is established by the purpose for which the statement was prepared and the identity of the intended user, not by re-running the tripartite test as if the issue were new. The court applies the established category rather than reinventing it. The Caparo factors do work where they belong, in the novel case, not as a fresh hurdle in a settled one.
The reach of Robinson is felt most clearly in scoping engagement letters and reliance language. Where a report is prepared knowing a third party will rely on it, that knowledge brings the case within an established category. Disclaimers, reliance letters and identification of intended recipients remain central. The cluster pages below explain how cover responds for the professions Apex Insurance Brokers most often serves:
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Firm reference number 724952. This entry is general information, not advice on any particular policy.