Cases - Samuel Payne v John Setchell Ltd

Record details

Name
Samuel Payne v John Setchell Ltd
Date
[2001]
Citation
EWHC 457 (TCC)
Legislation
Keywords
Contract administration
Summary

The court confronted the apparent anomaly that the duty of care owed to employers by contractors had been held to be more limited than that owed by professional consultants. The court attempted to narrow the scope of the duty owed by professional consultants (as found in Henderson v Merrett (1995)) to make it coterminous with the duty owed by contractors. The court held that both a contractor and an engineer should ordinarily owe a tortious duty to take reasonable care against causing their contractual client personal injury or damage to property other than to the building or construction work that is itself the subject of their work or services (i.e. pure economic loss remains excluded).