The “Paisley snail” case, Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100, set out the blueprints for the civil wrong of negligence in English tort law. Negligence is the most common ‘tort’ (or ‘wrong’) for which people seek compensation in England and Wales. Complainants (formerly known as ‘plaintiffs’) sue individuals and organisations in negligence for road traffic accidents, medical malpractice, and personal injury. I have retold the case of Donoghue in the style of a children’s story exclusively for educational and entertainment purposes.
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Donna wondered why the waitress would put a gherkin in her ginger beer. It really didn’t improve on the flavour, not whatsoever.
She chewed hard, thinking. Martha was sitting across from Donna, wittering on about a handsome London cabbie who’d smiled at her as she stepped out the carriage, utterly oblivious to her friend’s discomfort.
The gherkin slipped around Donna’s palate. That sliminess reminded her of nauseating, exotic Mediterranean food textures. She reflexively gagged at the memory of those awful honeymoon dinners that waistcoated, moustached men had served her in Paris.
Gunge oozed unpleasantly from the gherkin when she punctured it with her incisors. Donna’s eyes popped at the vile flavour, and she was on the brink of spitting the thing out, when a pretty bar-worker from across the room smiled at her through dark eyelashes.
Donna stomached a coy smile back, batting her own eyelids. Only a very small, black lump of gherkin escaped from the corner of her mouth, staining the crisp white serviette daintily positioned on her lap. The bar-worker hastily resumed their drink-making.
CRACK! Donna felt her tooth crunch on something brittle.
“Are you okay?” Martha gazed inquisitively at Donna. She was clearly peeved about her friend’s inattention to the cabbie story.
In one brave gulp, Donna swallowed her nerves along with that horrid, squelchy, crunchy imposter in her ginger beer.
“It’s my drink,” Donna explained, “There’s something seriously slimy and squelchy and sticky in it.”
Martha poured the rest of Donna’s bottle into her glass.
Their eyes filled with horror the drink-invader plopped into her drink. Something round, rubbery and revolting. The black, half-rotten snail began uncurling itself in the cloudy golden liquid, dark flakes of sluggish flesh twisting and swirling in the bubbles. The gnarled creature seemed unfurl to in slow motion as it swayed and danced to the bottom of the glass.
Donna could hear her heartbeat thumping, feel the blood pumping to and from her stomach, detect those black gungey juices rushing to the tips of fingers, the ends of her toes, the lobes of ears, the cartilage in her nose.
“You didn’t drink… You didn’t eat… that… Did you?” She looked appalled.
***
“The facts of this case are as follows,” Lord Justice Atkin boomed from the oaken chair, “Mr. Stevenson manufactured and supplied ginger beer to Wellmeadow Cafe without ascertaining that it was safely brewed, bottled and stored. It was not. Snail remains were found in the bottle. Donna Hugh was unfortunate enough to drink some of that ghastly beverage and thus went on to experience shock and subsequent sickness following this consumption.”
“In law, you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. So runs the Good Neighbour principle: citizens have a responsibility to ensure their actions or inactions do not unleash dangers onto people close to their sphere of influence. Therefore upon proving that Mr. Stevenson did not take a reasonable care, it follows that he should pay a proportional amount of compensation to Donna.”
Gap in the Law 