## Facts

- A dry dock owner supplied staging and ropes as part of the dock’s equipment for use on a ship undergoing exterior painting and repairs.
- A workman employed by an independent contractor (not by the dock owner) used the staging to paint the ship while it was in the dock.
- Evidence indicated the ropes supporting the staging were defective (including scorching) and unsafe when the staging was erected, and that reasonable care had not been taken to ensure their condition.
- A rope broke, the staging collapsed, and the workman fell and suffered injuries.

## Issues

1. Whether a dock owner owes a duty of care in negligence to a non-employee workman, lacking contractual privity, who uses staging supplied by the dock for ship work.
2. Whether duty can be stated as a general foreseeability-based principle rather than being confined to established relationship categories.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and recognized that a duty of reasonable care may be owed where the dock owner supplies appliances for the immediate use of persons working in the dock.
- The court accepted a duty framed to the specific context: reasonable care is required as to the condition of the articles when supplied for immediate use.
- The broader general duty formulation advanced by Brett M.R. was treated as influential but not fully adopted as the binding ratio by the other judges.

## Legal Principles

- A person who supplies apparatus for the immediate use of others in dock-related operations may owe a duty to use reasonable care to ensure it is safe when delivered for that use, even without a contract with the injured person.
- Liability depends on proof that the defect existed at the time the apparatus was supplied (i.e., while within the supplier’s control), not on later mishandling after it leaves that control.
- Foreseeability of injury from failing to exercise ordinary care can ground a duty of care; a broad statement of this principle was articulated but treated as partly obiter in this decision.
- The duty analysis may also be supported where the injured person is effectively present by the supplier’s implied invitation to use the facilities provided.

## Conclusion

The case recognized that a dock owner can owe a negligence duty to take reasonable care in supplying staging and related equipment for immediate use by workers on ships in the dock, despite the absence of privity, while also featuring an influential (though not fully adopted) foreseeability-based statement of general duty.


Heaven v. Pender (1883) 11 Q.B.D. 503 (C.A.)