Enables the dependants of a person killed by the defendant’s tort to claim for their financial losses and separately for bereavement. Dependants able to show a financial dependency will be able to claim provided that the deceased would have had a claim had he survived. The damages take account of earnings spent on the dependants, savings for their future, non-essentials and the value of services rendered. The bereavement claim, fixed at £10,000 per claim (fixed in 2002, reviewable), is divided equally among the eligible dependants to compensate for the non-pecuniary aspects such as emotional stress. It is only available to the surviving husband or wife, or, if the deceased was unmarried and a minor, to the parents.

Defined in the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945, as ‘the negligence, breach of statutory duty or other act or omission which gives rise to liability in tort, or would apart from this Act, give rise to the defence of contributory negligence. Under the Employers’ Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969 fault means ‘negligence, breach of statutory duty, or other act or omission which gives rise to liability in tort in England and Wales or which is wrongful and gives rise to liability in damages in Scotland’. In professional liability insurance it is a ‘breach of a civil duty.

Legal system where an injured party can only recover compensation when able to attach fault to a third party. With the main exception of government-provided industrial injury benefits, the UK operates a fault liability system. The injured party has to prove a third party’s breach of duty in order to recover damages aided in some instances by legislation creating a strict liability, e.g. the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

In the context of the exclusion in the contractors’ all risks insurance, this means: (a) a design which fails to meet the standards expected of design engineers; and (b) a design that proves inadequate but without blame or negligence attaching to the design engineer (Queensland Government Railways v. Manufacturers’ Mutual Insurance Co. Ltd (1969)). The design simply has to be faulty for the exclusion to apply.