It was arguable that a local authority owed a duty to care to children it was looking after, to look after them properlyZambrano carers:skill and care

Facts: Mr Barrett sued Enfield in negligence. He alleged that he had suffered personal injury, including a psychiatric illness, as a result of Enfield’s failure to look after him, as a child in care, with reasonable care and skill: it had sent him to a succession of residential homes, failed to provide him with properly trained social workers and psychiatric help, failed to make proper arrangements to re-unite him with his mother and failed to arrange for his adoption.

Judgment: it was inappropriate to strike out the claim: the public policy considerations which meant that a local authority was not (at that time) under a duty of care when deciding whether or not to take action in respect of suspected child abuse did not have the same force in respect of decisions taken once the child was already in local authority care; the question whether it was fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care was not to be decided in the abstract, on the basis of assumed hypothetical facts, but on the basis of what had been proved; and that, accordingly, the plaintiff was entitled to have his claim heard and the facts investigated: the court applied the test in Caparo Industries plc v Dickman:1[1990] 2 AC 605.was the damage relied on foreseeable, were the parties proximate and was it reasonable to recognise the existence of a duty of care.