Cases - Thompson v Clive Alexander & Partners
Record details
- Name
- Thompson v Clive Alexander & Partners
- Date
- (1992)
- Citation
- 59 BLR 77
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Contract administration
- Summary
-
The plaintiffs owned 3 houses that had been built to the design of the defendants, who were architects and engineers. The defendants also supervised the works. The plaintiffs alleged that the houses were defective and issued proceedings claiming damages for breach of statutory duty by the defendants pursuant to section 1(1) of the Defective Premises Act 1972.
The judge held that the threshold of the duty imposed by the Act is relatively low in that the requirement is to make the building fit for habitation. This means that there is no duty owed under the Act in respect for relatively minor defects that do not make the property uninhabitable.
The Act affords a defence to a contractor or professional consultant who carries out his work in accordance with the express instructions of another (e.g. the employer), so long as he discharges a duty to warn that the instructions being given are defective.
Section 1(2) and (3) provide:
'(2) A person who takes on any such work for another on terms that he is to do it in accordance with instructions given by or on behalf of that other shall, to the extent to which he does it properly in accordance with those instructions, be treated for the purposes of this section as discharging the duty imposed on him by subsection (1) above except where he owes a duty to that other to warn him of any defects in the instructions and fails to discharge that duty.
(3) A person shall not be treated for the purposes of subsection (2) above as having given instructions for the doing of work merely because he has agreed to the work being done in a specified manner, with specified materials or to a specified design.'