Cases - Aurum Investments Ltd v Avonforce Ltd

Record details

Name

Aurum Investments Ltd v Avonforce Ltd

Date

[2000]

Citation

EWHC 184 (TCC)

Keywords

Contract administration

Summary

The defendants were engaged to carry out excavation works prior to constructing a basement and garage to a residential property in London. The defendants duly instructed structural engineers to provide advice and engaged specialist underpinning subcontractors to carry out underpinning works. Some two months after the completion of the underpinning works, the defendants commenced excavation works to create the basement, but failed to provide any lateral support to the underpinning, causing it to collapse.

Proceedings were brought against the defendant contractors by the owner of the property, who sought to pass liability onto the underpinning contractors, alleging that they were under a duty to warn the defendants that adequate lateral support to the underpinning was required prior to commencing excavation works adjacent to the same.

The court reviewed the case-law on the subject and made the following conclusions:

• If works carried out by a contractor are, by their very nature, obviously dangerous, then a contractor might be under a duty to warn those instructing him that the works are dangerous. Such a duty would arise irrespective of whether those instructing that contractor had procured professional advice.
• If the contractor has no knowledge of the subsequent works to be carried out once his works are complete, then a duty to warn will not arise if the contractor has no reason to believe that the subsequent works will be carried out unsafely and/or negligently.
• It is reasonable for a contractor, in such circumstances, to assume that subsequent works will be carried out safely and with reasonable skill and care.
• Whether a duty to warn will arise is fact sensitive and must satisfy the test of 'reasonableness'.