The plaintiffs wanted photographs inside a cinema on which they had worked, and asked the defendants to take them. The photographer used a chemical flashlight using magnesium which gave off intense heat. The negligent photographer caused a fire. The cinema owner threatened to sue the plaintiffs for the cost of the repairs. On advice, the plaintiffs paid up, and now pursued the photographer’s employers to recover the payment. The defendants said the plaintiffs had no liability to pay the cinema company. Bennett J had held that ‘the work to be done by the defendants for the plaintiffs was not necessarily attended with risk, and that it was work which, as a general rule, would seem to be of quite a harmless nature’, and gave judgment for the defendants.
Held: The appeal succeeded. A person who employs an independent contractor will be liable for the negligence of that independent contractor where the independent contractor is engaged to carry out ‘extra-hazardous or dangerous operations’.
Slesser LJ said: ‘To take the photograph in the cinema with a flashlight was, on the evidence stated above, a dangerous operation in its intrinsic nature, involving the creation of fire and explosion on another person’s premises, that is in the cinema, the property of the cinema company. The appellants, in procuring this work to be performed by their contractors, the respondents, assumed an obligation to the cinema company which was, as we think, absolute, but which was at least an obligation to use reasonable precautions, to see that no damage resulted to the cinema company from these dangerous operations: that obligation they could not delegate by employing the respondents as independent contractors, but they were liable in this regard for the respondents’ acts. For the damage actually caused the appellants were accordingly liable in law to the cinema company, and are entitled to claim and recover from the respondents damages for their breach of contract, or negligence in performing their contract to take the photographs.,br />The learned judge has found for the respondents because he has held (founding himself on the words of Lord Watson in Dalton v. Angus (1881) 6 App. Cas. 740, 831 that the work to be done by the respondents for the appellants ‘was not necessarily attended with risk. It was work which, as a general rule, would seem to be of quite a harmless nature.’ But, with respect, he is ignoring the special rules which apply to extra-hazardous or dangerous operations. Even of these it may be predicated that if carefully and skilfully performed, no harm will follow: as instances of such operations may be given those of removing support from adjoining houses, doing dangerous work on the highway, or creating fire or explosion: hence it may be said, in one sense, that such operations are not necessarily attended with risk. But the rule of liability for independent contractors’ acts attaches to these operations, because they are inherently dangerous, and hence are done at the principal employer’s peril.’
Judges:
Slesser LJ
Citations:
[1934] 1 KB 191, [1933] All ER 77
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Restricted – Biffa Waste Services Ltd and Another v Maschinenfabrik Ernst Hese Gmbh and others CA 12-Nov-2008
The defendant contracted to build a plant for the claimant. The plant was damaged by a fire caused by the defendant’s independent sub-contractor. The defendant appealed against the finding that it was responsible for the sub-contractor’s failure. . .
Cited – Woodland v Essex County Council SC 23-Oct-2013
The claimant had been seriously injured in an accident during a swimming lesson. She sought to claim against the local authority, and now appealed against a finding that it was not responsible, having contracted out the provision of swimming . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Vicarious Liability, Negligence
Updated: 23 March 2022; Ref: scu.282630
