Rebuttable presumption of intention to create legal relations in Tort Law

Well, this is a new one that I’ve never been asked before!

The way that you have asked the question would lead me to answer ‘No’ – how / why can a person, alleged to nave been negligent, be deemed to have in his / her mind the consequences of their negligence BEYOND the consequences suffered by their legal neighbours. This is the proximity defence that would be raised by any defendant

However, looking at it from a different perspective, surely one could argue that ‘there are people that will be affected by your acts and they, I assume / presume would qualify as sufficiently proximate and thus qualify for the title of being a legal neighbour’

So, the existence of legal presumptions could, I feel, be applied to a tort case.

However, can the presumption be fairly applied (and be rebuttable) to ‘intention to create legal relations’

I’m struggling here to get a tortious act (a wrongful act or omission) to apply to intent. Certainly in Bourhill v Young, Young could not have foreseen the heavily pregnant Mrs Bourhill’s claimed reaction to looking at the resultant mess from Mr Young’s accident. Should he have anticipated Mrs Bourhill’s existence some 50 yards beyond the crash.

No, I can’t fasten the presumption to his negligence.

We’re also faced with the dilemma as to whether a statement made that subsequently proves to be false is intended to induce the other party to enter into a contractual relationship. Yes, I suppose we can have this ‘negligent misrepresentation’ as being a statement made with the intention of creating a legal relationship.

But, on its own, I don’t believe that a negligent statement can have a rebuttable presumption applied to it … so I’m sticking with my initial reaction – a concept of rebuttable presumption of intention to create legal relations cannot be applied to a tort per se .

OK?