The applicant sought damages for the wrongful termination of her lease by the respondent. The landlords re-entered in default of payment of the rent. The premises had been sub-let, and she sought damages for the loss of rental profits.
Held: The judge had admitted evidence which was not in formal form, but it was within his discretion to do so. The judge was wrong to award the capital value of the lease in addition to the loss of profits. He had awarded simple interest on the damages at 8% rather than the overdraft rate paid by the claimant. The court decided that the rate payable should reflect better the real cost of a small businessman borrowing that money, and allowed the appeal to that extent, but not compounded.
Rix LJ dealt with the question of setting the interest rate by first referring to Chitty on Contracts: ‘In business contexts, the rate of interest should reflect the current commercial rate. The approach of the Commercial Court is to award interest at a rate which broadly represents the rate at which the successful party would have had to borrow the amount recovered over the period in question.’ and then noted that a rate of 1% above base rate had become the usual rate adopted by the Commercial Court, albeit that this was ‘only a presumption’ and could be varied up or down to meet the fairness of the parties’ particular situation.
Judges:
Lord Justice Potter, Lord Justice Mummery, And, Lord Justice Rix
Citations:
Times 18-Mar-2002, [2002] EWCA Civ 210
Links:
Statutes:
Civil Evidence Act 1995 2(4), Supreme Court Act 1981 35A
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others ChD 23-Jan-2004
. .
Cited – Aerospace Publishing Ltd and Another v Thames Water Utilities Ltd CA 11-Jan-2007
A substantial private archive of valuable books had been damaged when the defendant’s water mains burst. The court was asked to assess the value.
Held: The water company’s appeal failed save to a small extent. The articles were of substantial . .
Cited – Bim Kemi Ab v Blackburn Chemicals Ltd CA 24-Jun-2003
It had been argued by the claimant in written submissions (although not maintained orally) that an order for payment of pre-judgment interest on costs should never be made. As to an award of interest on costs:- ‘In any event in principle there seems . .
Cited – Jones and Others v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Another QBD 3-May-2013
The claimants sought an order for pre-judgment interest on the disbursements incurred in this group litigation. The clients were liable for payment of the disbursements under the conditional fee agreements, and in this case these amounted to over . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Evidence, Damages
Updated: 05 June 2022; Ref: scu.167646