Farah and Others v Home Office, British Airways Plc and Another: CA 6 Dec 1999

The applicants claimed in negligence against the Home Office after its advisers had wrongly advised the first defendants that the claimants’ travel documents were not valid. The claim was struck out, and the claimants appealed. The strike out was wrong in principle, because such a claim required first for certain facts to be established or denied, and that required other steps to be taken before a strike out application could properly be determined. Such a representation arguably founded a negligence action because there was arguably a sufficient degree of proximity between the Home Office and the passenger to give rise to a duty of care. The strike out was premature.

Judges:

Lord Woolf MR and Chadwick LJ

Citations:

Times 26-Jan-2000

Statutes:

Immigration (Carriers Liability) Act 1987

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedEquitable Life Assurance Society v Ernst and Young CA 25-Jul-2003
The claimant sought damages from its accountants, saying that had they been advised of the difficulties in their financial situation, they would have been able to avoid the loss of some 2.5 billion pounds, or to sell their assets at a time when . .
CitedChagos Islanders v The Attorney General, Her Majesty’s British Indian Ocean Territory Commissioner QBD 9-Oct-2003
The Chagos Islands had been a British dependent territory since 1814. The British government repatriated the islanders in the 1960s, and the Ilois now sought damages for their wrongful displacement, misfeasance, deceit, negligence and to establish a . .
CitedBinod Sutradhar v Natural Environment Research Council CA 20-Feb-2004
The defendant council had carried out research into a water supply in India in the 1980s. The claimant drank the water, and claimed damages for having consumed arsenic in it.
Held: There is a close link between the tests in law for proximity . .
CitedQuickson (South and West) Limited v Stephen Mark Katz, John Stephen Kelmanson (As Joint Liquidators of Buildlead Limited) ChD 25-Aug-2004
Various applications were made in the insolvency, including for removal of the liquidators and declarations that certain payments were a fraudulent preference on the creditors.
Held: No prejudice had been shown by any procedural irregularity. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice, Negligence

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.80467