Cases - Eckersley v Binnie

Record details

Name

Eckersley v Binnie

Date

[1988]

Citation

18 Con LR 44, CA

Keywords

Expert witness - contract administration

Summary

Following the death of 16 visitors to a pumping station due to a methane explosion (the Abbeystead disaster), negligence actions were brought by survivors and relatives of the deceased against those responsible for the design, construction and operation of the works.

The Court of Appeal ruled on the first instance judge’s findings of the expert evidence:

'In resolving conflicts of expert evidence, the judge remains the judge; he is not obliged to accept evidence simply because it comes from an illustrious source; he can take account of demonstrated partisanship and lack of objectivity. But save where an expert is guilty of a deliberate attempt to mislead (as happens only very rarely), a coherent reasoned opinion expressed by a suitably qualified expert should be the subject of a coherent reasoned rebuttal, unless it can be discounted for other good reason.'

The Court of Appeal considered the duties of care owed by each of the defendants for the design, construction and operation of the tunnel. It held that:

1. At the design stage, the consultant engineer is expected to exercise the skill of a reasonably competent engineer specialising in the particular field of construction. In the circumstances, a reasonably competent engineer specialising in the design of water systems ought to have detected a risk of methane being present in the aqueduct. The explosion was therefore reasonably foreseeable. The first defendants were negligent in failing to take into account the possibility that methane may be present when designing the aqueduct;
2. The second defendants, the tunnelling contractors, did not owe the claimants a duty of care. The duty of care owed by the second defendants was to ensure that the aqueduct was safe for those that used it during its construction. It did not continue upon the completion of construction.
3. The third defendants were not negligent towards the plaintiffs. The Authority was unaware that the first defendants had been negligent at the design stage. Therefore, the explosion was not foreseeable to the Authority.