Doughty v Turner [1964] 1 QB 518

Defendant was employed by Plaintiff to look after two cauldrons of boiling hot metal that had asbestos covers.

Defendant accidentally let the cover slide into the cauldron. Since the cover was bought off a reputable manufacturer, nobody thought it was dangerous that the cover was in the cauldron and they stayed in the room. The metal exploded injuring Defendant.

CA dismissed Defendant’s claim since the only reasonably foreseeable damage was that there might be a “splash”, while an explosion was completely unforeseeable. Therefore, because the actual danger was of a fundamentally different type to the reasonably foreseeable danger, Plaintiff was not liable.