Floodgates principle

The floodgates principle, or the floodgates argument, is a legal principle which is sometimes applied by judges to restrict or limit the right to make claims for damages because of a concern that permitting a claimant to recover in such situations might open the metaphorical "floodgates" to large numbers of claims and lawsuits. The principle is most frequently cited in common law jurisdictions, and in English tort law in particular.

Most of the situations in which the courts have employed the floodgates argument have revolved around liability in tort, and in particular in relation to the liability for nervous shock or for pure economic loss. The rationale in which the floodgates principle has been applied may vary. In some cases it is expressed to be a constraint upon when a defendant will owe a duty of care, in others it is expressed to be a limitation upon the remoteness of damage for which a defendant should be held responsible for. In other cases it is simply stated as a principle of public policy.

The floodgates principle is arguably the antithesis of the legal maxim: fiat justitia ruat caelum ("let justice be done though the heavens fall").

The core of the principle was enunciated by the then-Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals (later Associate Supreme Court Justice) Benjamin N. Cardozo in Ultramares Corp. v. Touche (1932) 174 N.E. 441 as the risk of exposing defendants to liability for "indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class".

In Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v Martin & Co (Contractors) Ltd Lord Denning MR put the same point in more expansive terms:

[I]f claims for economic loss were permitted for this particular hazard, there would be no end of claims. Some might be genuine, but many might be inflated, or even false. A machine might not have been in use anyway, but it would be easy to put it down to the cut in supply. It would be well-nigh impossible to check the claims. If there was economic loss on one day, did the claimant do his best to mitigate it by working harder next day? and so forth. Rather than expose claimants to such temptation and defendants to such hard labour - on comparatively small claims - it is better to disallow economic loss altogether, at any rate when it stands alone, independent of any physical damage.

If a party by their negligence causes physical injury to one other person, then the pool of claimants for that physical injury is just that person. However, if each person who suffers resultant economic loss as a result of the injury to the person is also able to make a claim, then potentially the negligent party (and the courts) could be opened up to a vast array of claims. Similarly, where a party publishes a negligent in a document, if that document is published widely, if every person who read that statement was entitled to rely upon it and claim for any loss caused by relying upon it, there would similarly be an extremely wide-ranging liability for negligent misstatement. The last, and probably most difficult area where the floodgates principle has been evoked relates to psychiatric injury, or "nervous shock". How far should a person be liable if they injure someone negligently, and then other persons see the accident and suffer psychiatric injury (but no physical harm) just from witnessing the accident? In trying to answer these questions the courts have sometimes fallen back on the floodgates principle to try and limit the potential range of claims.

In English law the first recorded reference to the floodgates principle was in 1888 in Victorian Railway Commissioners v Coultas That case involved a pregnant woman (the claimant) whose husband had driven onto train tracks at a level crossing, and due to the negligence of the gate keeper, were nearly struck by a high speed train. The plaintiff, Mrs Coultas, suffered from serious shock, leading to impaired memory and eyesight, and the loss of her unborn child. Nonetheless, the Privy Council held that she had no sustainable claim for damages, holding that: