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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.  















Professional Negligence - From: 1960 To: 1969

This page lists 10 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.

 
Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd [1964] AC 465; [1963] 2 All ER 575; [1963] UKHL 4; [1963] 1 Lloyds Rep 485; [1963] 3 WLR 101
28 May 1963
HL
Lord Morris, Lord Devlin, Lord Reid, Lord Hodson
Professional Negligence, Banking
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any assumption of a duty of care to a third party when purely economic losses were at issue. Held: Irrespective of any contract, if someone who is possessed of a special skill undertakes to apply that skill for the assistance of another person, who relies upon such skill, then a duty of care will arise. In certain circumstances a professional adviser might be liable even in the absence of a contractual or fiduciary relationship between himself and the person who had suffered some economic loss. Lord Devlin considered the sort of relationship which gave rise to a responsibility towards those who act upon information or advice and so created a duty of care towards the person so acting, saying "I do not understand any of your Lordships to hold that it is a responsibility imposed by law upon certain types of persons or in certain sorts of situations. It is a responsibility that is voluntarily accepted or undertaken, either generally where a general relationship, such as that of solicitor and client or banker and customer, is created, or specifically in relation to a particular transaction." and "If irrespective of contract, a doctor negligently advises a patient that he can safely pursue his occupation and he cannot and the patient's health suffers and he loses his livelihood, the patient has a remedy. But if the doctor negligently advises him that he cannot safely pursue his occupation when in fact he can and he loses his livelihood, there is said to be no remedy. Unless, of course, the patient was a private patient and the doctor accepted half a guinea for his trouble: then the patient can recover all. I am bound to say, my Lords, that I think this to be nonsense. It is not the sort of nonsense that can arise even in the best system of law out of the need to draw nice distinctions between borderline cases. It arises, if it is the law, simply out of a refusal to make sense. The line is not drawn on any intelligible principle. It just happens to be the line which those who have been driven from the extreme assertion that negligent statements in the absence of contractual or fiduciary duty give no cause of action have in the course of their retreat so far reached."
and, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest said: "it should now be regarded as settled that if someone possessed of a special skill undertakes, quite irrespective of contract, to apply that skill for the assistance of another person who relies upon such skill, a duty of care will arise. The fact that the service is to be given by means of or by the instrumentality of words can make no difference. Furthermore, if in a sphere in which a person is so placed that they could reasonably rely upon his judgment or his skill or upon his ability to make careful inquiry, a person takes it upon himself to give information or advice to, or allows his information or advice to be passed on to, another person who, as he knows or should know, will place reliance upon it, then a duty of care will arise."
Lord Devlin held that the categories of special relationships which might give rise to a duty of care in word as well as in deed are not limited to contractual relationships or to relationships of fiduciary duty, "but include also relationships which in the words of Lord Shaw in Nocton v Lord Ashburton are 'equivalent to contract' that is, where there is an assumption of responsibility in circumstances in which, but for the absence of consideration, there would be a contract." and
"I have had the advantage of reading all the opinions prepared by your Lordships and of studying the terms which your Lordships have framed by way of definition of the sort of relationship which gives rise to a responsibility towards those who act upon information or advice and so creates a duty of care towards them. I do not understand any of your Lordships to hold that it is a responsibility imposed by law upon certain types of persons or in certain sorts of situations. It is a responsibility that is voluntarily accepted or undertaken, either generally where a general relationship, such as that of solicitor and client or banker and customer, is created, or specifically in relation to a particular transaction."
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[ UBC ] - [ Bailii ] - [ Bailii ]
 
Clay v AJ Crump and Sons Ltd [1964] 1 QB 533
1964
CA
Upjohn LJ
Professional Negligence, Construction
An architect, a demolition contractor and a building contractor were each held liable to an employee of building contractors for the collapse of a wall which, with the architect's approval, demolition contractors had left standing. Held: As far as tests for causation were concerned each case must be tested on its own facts and there was no general rule.
If an architect or engineer designs a house or a bridge so negligently that it falls down, he is liable to every one of those who are injured in the fall.
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Thorne v Northern Group Hospital Management Committee Times, 06 June 1964
6 Jun 1964

Edmund Davis J
Professional Negligence
At common law, "as a matter of general principle a hospital is under a duty to take precautions to avoid the possibility of injury, whether self-inflicted or otherwise, occurring to patients who it knows, or ought to know, have a history of mental illness."
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Cook v Swinfen [1966] 1 WLR 635
1966


Professional Negligence, Damages

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Moresk Cleaners Ltd v Hicks [1966] 2 Lloyds Rep 338; (1966) 4 BLR 50
1966

Sir Walker Carter OR
Construction, Professional Negligence
If a dangerous defect arises as the result of a negligent omission on the part of an architect, he cannot excuse himself from liability on the grounds that he delegated the duty of design of the relevant part of the building works, unless he obtains the permission of his employer to do so. A consultant in that situation must either decline the work, advise the client to obtain expert advice for that particular part of the work or engage an expert itself whilst retaining all responsibility to the client.
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 Rondel v Worsley; HL 1967 - [1969] 1 AC 191; [1967] 3 All ER 993 HL(E); [1967] 3 WLR 1666; [1967] UKHL 5
 
Roe and Another v Robert McGregor and Sons Ltd; Bills v Roe [1968] 1 WLR 925; [1968] 2 All ER 636
1968
CA
Harman LJ
Professional Negligence, Litigation Practice
The plaintiff was driving a van at night. He didn't see a 'road closed' sign erected by the defendant contractors, and proceede down a 30 ft bank injuring himself and his passenger. He said the contractors' the sign was inadequate and that he had had very little to drink and when counsel for the defendants sought to cross-examine him to suggest that he was drunk, the judge would not allow it. The judge found in favour of the driver and his passenger. Later, the contractors discovered credible evidence that the driver had been drunk. Held: The contractors' appeal succeeded after fresh evidence from a passenger and a publican was allowed which showed that he had been drinking. The judgment was set aside, and a re-hearing ordered. The contractors' solicitors didn't interview the passenger supposing, reasonably, that he would be unlikely to give evidence against his friend the driver.
Harman LJ said: "It is by no means to be taken on these motions that this evidence is likely in the end to be believed. These motions are brought for leave to adduce this extra evidence. But in my judgment that would be, in a case of this sort, a hopelessly inconvenient course to take, because quite clearly, if Harrison and the publican are to have their evidence admitted, evidence to rebut what they say must also be admitted and there must be evidence on one side and the other which will very greatly alter the whole shape of the testimony. The only course, I think, for this court, if it thinks that it should do anything, is to order a new trial and I think that counsel in the end conceded really that that was the proper course to take if the court were moved to take any course."
As to the alleged failing of the solicitor, Harman LJ said: "It was said that the contractors' solicitor knew that [the passenger] had been in the car: she had only, as it is said, to go to him, ask him for a statement, and the whole matter would have come out at a much earlier stage, and there would have been no need to come at this date and ask for the admission of fresh evidence. It is said that the solicitor made an error of judgment which, although perhaps understandable, be it said, was not excusable in the sense that she could have been said to have acted with reasonable diligence. In my opinion, that charge entirely fails. I cannot see that there was any default at all on the part of the very experienced solicitor acting for the contractors in not approaching [the passenger]. He was a man directly in the other camp. He might be expected at any moment to start proceedings himself for damages, although he had not done so nor sent any letter making any claim hitherto. He was a person who was unlikely in the extreme, it might reasonably be supposed, to be willing to give evidence against his friends in the car that they were all drunk at the time. And I cannot think that it was any part of the duty of this lady acting as solicitor to the contractors to the contractors to go and try to worm something out of [the passenger]."
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Barnett v Chelsea and Kensington Hospital Management Committee [1969] 1 QB 428; [1968] 1 All ER 1068; [1968] 2 WLR 422
1968
QBD
Nield J
Professional Negligence
The widow of a night watchman who died of arsenic poisoning claimed in negligence after he had attended the defendant's hospital, but was negligently sent home without adequate treatment. Held: The court was satisfied that even if the defendants had performed their duty of care and admitted the deceased to their hospital, he would still have died of arsenic poisoning five hours after being admitted, and that he therefore suffered no loss as a consequence of the breach of duty complained of.
The court distinguished between a casualty department of a hospital that closes its doors and says no patients can be received, in which case he would, by inference, have held there was no duty of care, and the case before him where the three watchmen, who had taken poison, entered the hospital and were given erroneous advice, where a duty of care arose. However, the watchman would have died from arsenic poisoning even if the hospital casualty department had treated him properly, and the hospital's negligence was not a necessary element in the conditions which led to the watchman's death. No damages were payable.
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 Hucks v Cole; CA 1968 - [1993] 4 Med LR 393; Times. 9 May 1968
 
Allen v Alfred MacAlpine and Sons Ltd [1968] 2 QB 259; [1968] 1 All ER 543
1968
CA
Diplock LJ
Professional Negligence
The court described the peculiarly difficult position of a solicitor sued for the negligence of losing litigation for his client by reason of having his client's claim struck out: "It is true that if the action for professional negligence were fought, the court which tried it would have to assess what those chances were. But on this issue the plaintiff would be in a much more advantageous position than if he had sought, despite the inordinate delay, to establish liability against the defendant in the action which had been dismissed. Not only would there be available to him any advice or material which had been given or obtained by his solicitor in support of his case in the dismissed action, but the principle of Armory v Delamirie (1722) 1 Stra. 505 would apply and would impose upon the solicitor the onus of satisfying the court that the plaintiff's claim in the dismissed action would not have succeeded had it been prosecuted with diligence. This would be a heavy onus to sustain after so a great a lapse of time." and "The probabilities are that in any case in which the plaintiff had been advised to bring the action which had been dismissed and had never been advised to discontinue it, his subsequent action against his solicitor for negligence would be settled. One would hope that, for the good name of the profession, it would be settled promptly." As to the breach of the court rules the Court might strike out a claimant's case where the breach "has been intentional and contumelious..."
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