In the sole dissenting judgment, Viscount Dilhorne held that the neighbour principle could not have been intended to be applied in all circumstances and that it could only be used to determine to whom a duty of care is owed rather than if one exists. Judges, he opined, "are concerned not with what the law should be but with what it is. The absence of authority shows that no such duty Dorset Yacht Company now exists. If there should be one, that is, in my view, a matter for the legislature and not for the courts". Chapman comments "that this conclusion appeared ... distinctly quaint, old-fashioned and even untenable in the light of ["Donoghue"] shows how far the law had moved in the four decades which separated the two House of Lords decisions".