The plaintiff Winterbottom had been contracted by the Postmaster-General to drive a mail coach supplied by the Postmaster.

The defendant Wright had been contracted by the Postmaster to maintain the coach in a safe state.

The principle of Winterbottom meant that consumers who were injured by defective products in the 19th century had no legal action against the defective execution of a contract to which they were not expressly privy,[3] a doctrine referred to by legal scholars including P. H. Winfield as the "privity of contract fallacy".

[2] Though Master of the Rolls William Brett sought to establish a general principle of duty of care in Heaven v. Pender (1883), his judgment was at variance with the majority of the court.

The privity argument was subsequently rejected in common law in the United States in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. (1916) and finally in England by the doctrine of the "neighbour principle" in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932).