Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co Ltd [1970] UKHL 2, [1970] AC 1004 is a leading case in English tort law.

A preliminary issue was ordered to be tried on whether the officers or the Home Office owed a duty of care to the claimants (plaintiffs, before the Civil Procedure Rules of 1999) capable of giving rise to liability in damages.

The preliminary hearing found for the Dorset Yacht Co. that there was, in law, a duty of care and that the case could go forward for trial on its facts.

Lord Denning MR held that the Home Office should be liable for the damage on grounds of public policy.

No householder who has been burgled, no person who has been wounded by a criminal, has ever recovered damages from the prison authorities; such as to find a place in the reports.

But I think that the time has come when we can and should say that it ought to apply unless there is some justification or valid explanation for its exclusion.Viscount Dilhorne gave a dissenting judgment.

The case is perhaps relevant not only for its clear elucidation of the 1930s-established Atkinian notion of neighbourhood (a proximity or sufficient nexus) but also for its expression of a thoroughly incrementalist approach to the development of the duty of care.