Cases - Kaliszewska v John Clague & Partners

Record details

Name

Kaliszewska v John Clague & Partners

Date

(1984)

Citation

Const. LJ 137

Keywords

Contract administration

Summary

The claimant engaged the defendant architect to design a single-storey dwelling-house at a site in Kent. The ground was largely comprised of London clay. Unbeknown to the claimant, the defendant's design was defective in that it did not make proper provisions for settlement and heave conditions which should have been anticipated on the site. In 1974, four years after the house was completed, cracking appeared. The cracks worsened in 1976 and in 1978 an independent expert advised that underpinning was necessary. The claimant brought an action to recover the costs of remedial works in 1982.

The judge ruled that the property was an 'exceptional' case and was satisfied that the building was 'doomed from the start' with some movement damage having in fact occurred at a very early stage (in 1971). The judge further held that the defendant was guilty only of incompetence, and not deliberate concealment, even though in designer had deliberately rejected contemporaneous architectural wisdom as 'idealistic'.