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Professional Negligence - From: 1900 To: 1929
This page lists 6 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Pulsford v Devenish [1903] 2 Ch 625
1903
ChD
Farwell J
Insolvency, Professional Negligence, Company
The liquidator in a voluntary liquidation negligently failed to inform the company's creditors of the liquidation, and distributed the company's assets to its contributories without regard to the creditors' claims. The company was later dissolved. Held: The creditors had a claim against the liquidator. The availability of the statutory remedy of a creditor under section 10 and the statutory right of a creditor to apply in a voluntary liquidation under section 138 ceased to exist when the company was dissolved. "But the duty to pay the debts is an absolute statutory duty, without limit in point of time and with no provision for the release of the voluntary liquidator.
It is not necessary to resort to trusteeship or equitable doctrines: the case is one of a duty imposed by a statute on an individual for the benefit of a class of persons, namely, creditors and the only peculiarity of the case is that the remedy created by the statute is not co-extensive in point of time with the duty, for the Act permits the destruction of the remedy before the duty has been performed.
Now the principles applicable to such a duty as I have mentioned are well settled and rest on the well-founded assumption that the Legislature does not intend its enactment to be brutum fulmen: if, therefore, a statute creates such a duty but no remedy, an action at common law (in former days action on the case) will lie for breach of such duty." and "It was urged in argument that the liquidator is merely the agent of the company; but assuming this to be so, I can see nothing inconsistent in the imposition on such agent of a duty to the company's creditors."
Companies Act 1890 10 138
1 Cites
1 Citers
Everett v Griffiths [1920] 3 KB 163; 89 LJKB 929; 123 LT 280; 84 JP 161
1920
CA
Bankes LJ and Atkin LJ
Professional Negligence, Health Professions
The plaintiff, who had been detained as a lunatic as the result of the decision of Griffiths, a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Board of Guardians in reliance on a medical certificate signed by Anklesaria, a Doctor, sued them both in negligence. Held: A workhouse doctor owed a duty of care to a person whom he certified to be insane.
1 Citers
Fletcher and Son v Jubb, Booth and Helliwel [1920] 1 KB 275
1920
CA
Scrutton LJ
Legal Professions, Professional Negligence
Scrutton LJ said: "it would be extremely difficult to define the exact limit by which the skill and diligence which a solicitor undertakes to furnish in the conduct of a case is bounded, or to trace precisely the dividing line between that reasonable skill and diligence which appears to satisfy his undertaking, and that crassa negligentia, or lata culpa mentioned in some of the cases, for which he is undoubtedly responsible. It is a question of degree and there is a borderland within which it is difficult to say whether a breach of duty has or has not been committed."
1 Citers
Commissioners of Taxation v English, Scottish and Australian Bank Limited [1920] AC 683
2 Jan 1920
PC
Lord Dunedin
Commonwealth, Banking, Professional Negligence
The Board considered what would amount to negligence in a bank. Held: The test in Permewan was to be applied by "the standard to be derived from the ordinary practice of bankers, not individuals." A customer of the bank is a person who has a more permanent relationship with the bank, for instance, having an existing account with the bank. Habit or continued dealings will not make a party a customer unless there is an account in his name. Thus a person who had opened an account on the day before paying in a cheque was a customer of the bank within the meaning of s 88(1) of the 1909 Act: "The contrast is not between an habitue and a newcomer, but between a person for whom the bank performs a casual service, such as, for instance, cashing a cheque for a person introduced by one of their customers, and a person who has an account of his own at the bank."
A negligence in collection is not a question of negligence in opening an account, though the circumstances connected with the opening of an account may shed light on the question whether there was negligence in collecting a cheque.
Bills of Exchange Act 1909 88(1)
1 Cites
1 Citers
Everett v Griffiths; HL 1921 - [1921] 1 AC 631; 90 LJKB 737; 125 LT 230; 85 JP 140
In re Windsor Steam Coal Co. (1901) Ltd [1929] 1 Ch 151
1929
Company, Insolvency, Professional Negligence
The courts look more favourably on applications by gratuitous trustees than on those by paid trustees. In a company winding up the liquidator may be liable to the company for negligence on his part in making a compromise.
1 Citers
