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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Negligence - From: 1992 To: 1992

This page lists 13 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.

 
Palmer v Durnford Ford [1992] QB 483; [1992] 2 WLR 407; [1992] 2 All ER 122;
1992
QBD
Mr. Simon Tuckey QC
Litigation Practice, Negligence
The plaintiff had consented to judgment for his opponent in a case against both the supplier and a repairer of a lorry tractor unit. They subsequently sued an engineering expert on the ground that his incompetent report had led them to advance claims on a basis that was invalid, and their solicitors for negligence in engaging an incompetent expert. The expert persuaded the district judge to strike out the claim against him on the ground that he was immune from suit. Held: Witnesses are immune from suit in relation to their conduct as witnesses. Mr. Simon Tuckey QC said: "Generally I do not think that liability for failure to give careful advice to his client should inhibit an expert from giving truthful and fair evidence in court. I can see no good reason why an expert should not be liable for the advice which he gives to his client as to the merits of the claim, particularly if proceedings have not been started, and a fortiori as to whether he is qualified to advise at all."
1 Citers


 
Hendy v Milton Keynes Health Authority [1992] 3 Med LR 114
1992

Blofeld J
Limitation, Negligence
A potential plaintiff may have sufficient knowledge of the damage suffered to set the limitation period running, if she appreciates 'in general terms' that her problem was capable of being attributed to the operation, even where particular facts of what specifically went wrong or how or where precise error was made is not known to her.
1 Citers



 
 E Hobbs (Farms) Limited v The Baxenden Chemical Co Limited; 1992 - [1992] 1 Lloyds Rep 54
 
Lonrho plc v Tebbit [1992] 4 All ER 280
1992
CA

Administrative, Negligence
The company became involved in a takeover bid. It was referred to the Monopolies Commision, and the buyer undertook not to increase his shareholding pending the report. In the meantime another buyer acquired a majority shareholding. The buyer had not been released from his undertaking even though it had been found that his proposed take-over would not be contrary to the public interst. The buyer had therefore been prevented from acquiring a majority interest and claimed damages in negligence from the defendant Secretary of State. The defendant appealed a refusal to strike out the claim. Held: The buyer had a clear private interest in being released from his undertaking immediately it became unnecessary, and the defendant owed a duty in private law to him to exercise reasonable care. The claim in private law was properly commenced by writ.
1 Cites


 
South Pacific Manufacturing Co Ltd v New Zealand Security Consultants and Investigations Ltd [1992] 2 NZLR 282
1992

Richardson J
Negligence
(New Zealand) Proximity in the law of negligence may consist of various forms of closeness – physical, circumstantial, causal or assumed: "It involves considering the relationship from the perspective of both the defendant and the claimant. At root, it will reflect ‘a balancing of the plaintiff’s moral claim to compensation for avoidable harm, and the defendant’s moral claim to be protected from an undue burden of legal responsibility’. As such it will inevitably overlap with considerations of justice between the parties."
1 Citers


 
Punjab National Bank v de Boinville [1992] 1 WLR 1138; [1992] 1 Lloyds Rep 7; [1992] 3 All ER 104
1992
CA
Staughton
Negligence, Contract
The plaintiff was a person whom the broker knew was to become the assignee of an insurance policy, and the plaintiff had actively participated in giving instructions to the broker for the purchase of the relevant policy. Held: A duty of care was exceptionally owed by an insurance broker not only to his client but also to a specific person whom he knew was to become an assignee of the policy. However, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, a broker owes no duty of care to prevent economic loss except in accordance with his or her contract of retainer.
the employees of underwriting firms who had been responsible for acts of nondisclosure and misrepresentation were themselves liable for those acts. The reasoning of the court in that case was that those individuals "were evidently entrusted with the whole or nearly the whole of the task which their employers undertook".
Staughton LJ said: "if the parties to a concluded contract subsequently agree in express terms that some words in it are to be replaced by others, one can have regard to all aspects of the subsequent agreement in construing the contract, including the deletions, even in a case which is not, or is not wholly, concerned with a printed form."
1 Citers


 
Wright v Davidson (1992) 88 DLR (4th) 698; 1992 CanLII 1020 (BC BA); [1992] 3 WWR 611; (1992), 64 BCLR (2d) 113
7 Feb 1992


Commonwealth, Negligence, Damages
(British Columbia Court of Appeal) The court rejected a claim for damages for a suicide after the deceased claimant had suffered injury in a road collision because the conscious decision of the deceased to take her own life had occurred without any "disabling mental illness" indicative of "an incapacity in her faculty of volition"; "she made a conscious decision, there being no evidence of disabling mental illness to lead to the conclusion that she had an incapacity in her faculty of volition."
1 Citers

[ Canlii ]
 
Lavis v Kent County Council Times, 24 November 1994; (1992) 90 LGR 416; [1993] CLY 2949
18 Feb 1992
QBD

Negligence, Local Government, Road Traffic
The plaintiff had received serious injuries whilst riding his motor cycle at a road junction for which the defendants were responsible. He alleged that they were liable to him for failing to ensure that proper warning signs were placed at the approach to the junction. The defendants were empowered to place such signs, but not under a duty to do so. They applied to strike out the plaintiff's claim as disclosing no cause of action. Held: A Local Authority had a discretion not to erect a particular road sign, but the decision was to be made according to the standards of a competent road engineer. "In my judgment it is perfectly clear that the duty imposed is not capable of covering the erection of traffic signs, and nothing more need be said about that particular provision".
1 Citers


 
Verderame v Commercial Union Assurance Co Plc [1992] BCLC 793; Times, 02 April 1992
2 Apr 1992
CA
Balcombe LJ
Agency, Insurance, Company, Contract, Negligence, Damages
The insurance brokers, acting to arrange insurance for a small private limited company did not owe a duty in tort to the directors of that company personally. Where an action was brought in a tort and in breach of contract, damages could not be awarded on the tort where they were not available in contract.
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Nestle v National Westminster Bank [1992] EWCA Civ 12; [1993] 1 WLR 1260; [1994] 1 All ER 118
6 May 1992
CA
Dillon, Staughton, Leggatt LJJ
Wills and Probate, Financial Services, Negligence
The claimant said that the defendant bank as trustee of her late father's estate had been negligent in its investment of trust assets. Held: The claimant had failed to establish either a breach of trust or any loss flowing from it, though there was not much for the bank to be proud of in its administration of the trusts.
Aministration of Justice Act 1985 50
1 Cites

[ Bailii ]
 
B v Islington Health Authority; De Martell v Merton and Sutton Health Authority Gazette, 06 May 1992; [1993] QB 204
6 May 1992
CA
Phillips J
Negligence
A doctor's duty of care to an unborn child is an established duty in common law despite some cases apparently to the contrary. Phillips J: "The duty in the law of negligence is not a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid risk of causing injury. It is the duty not to cause injury by want of reasonable care."
1 Citers



 
 H v Secretary of State for the Home Department; CA 10-Jun-1992 - Gazette, 10 June 1992
 
Osman and another v Ferguson and another [1993] 4 All ER 344; [1992] EWCA Civ 8
7 Oct 1992
CA
Lord Justice McCowan
Police, Negligence
A schoolmaster developed an infatuation for a teenage pupil. It led to the killing of Ahmet's father, Ali, the wounding of Ahmet, the wounding of a deputy headmaster and the killing of the deputy headmaster's son. Mr Osman's widow and Ahmet claimed against, with another, the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. The defendant appealed against arefusal to strike out the claim. Held: The appeal was allowed. In light of previous authorities, no action could lie against the police in negligence in the investigation and suppression of crime on the grounds that public policy required an immunity from suit. The Commissioner and his officers owed Ali and Ahmet no duty of care.
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
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