was a judicial decision of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

in relation to recovery for

pure economic loss Economic loss is a term of art which refers to financial loss and damage suffered by a person which is seen only on a balance sheet and not as physical injury to person or property. There is a fundamental distinction between pure economic loss and ...

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

. The court overruled the decision ''

Anns v Merton London Borough Council was a decision of the House of Lords. It established a broad test for determining the existence of a duty of care in the tort of negligence called the Anns test or sometimes the two-stage test for true third-party negligence. This case was over ...

'' with respect to

duty of care in English law In English tort law, an individual may owe a duty of care to another, to ensure that they do not suffer any unreasonable harm or loss. If such a duty is found to be breached, a legal liability is imposed upon the tortfeasor to compensate the vict ...

Facts

A builder failed to build proper foundations to a house. The defendant

local authority Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

, approving the building for its building regulations, failed to recognise the problem. When the building became dangerously unstable, the claimant, being unable to raise any money for repairs and choosing not to sue anyone at that stage therefore had to sell the house at a considerable loss. He sought to recover his loss from Brentwood District Council, but this action failed as the loss, the deflated value he obtained for the house, was classed as a pure economic loss.

Judgment

The House of Lords overruled ''Anns'' and held that the council was not liable in the absence of physical injury. Also, the case of ''

Dutton v Bognor Regis UDC ''Dutton v Bognor Regis Urban District Council'' 9721 QB 373 is an English contract law and English tort law case concerning defective premises and the limits of contract damages. It was disapproved by the House of Lords in ''Murphy v Brentwood ...

'' was disapproved. This judgment was rejected in some

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

jurisdictions, notably Canada, Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand, all of which preferred the two stage ''Anns'' test of proximity and policy.

Reflection

Just as in the ''Anns'' case, Building Regulations are part of the bylaws of the local Council. The Regulations require that notice should be given to the Council both at the commencement of the work and at specific stages, such as when the foundation trenches were ready to be poured. Councils have the power to inspect the foundations and to require any corrections necessary to bring the work into conformity with the bylaws, but they are not under an obligation to do so. In ''Anns'' the House of Lords considered whether the local council were under any duty of care toward owners or occupiers of houses as regards inspection during the building process, and unanimously decided that a duty of care did exist and that such a duty was not barred by a "limitation of actions" statute. ''Anns'' has been overruled, with the conclusion that a person who has a right has no duties implicitly attached to that right. Jurists

Mickey Dias Reginald Walter Michael "Mickey" Dias Bandaranaike QC (3 March 1921 – 17 November 2009) was a barrister, academic and author of leading works on jurisprudence and the law of tort. He was the first Law Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, ...

and Hohfeld have shown that rights and duties are ''jural correlatives''. That is to say: if someone has a right, ''someone else'' owes a duty to them. So here, the inspectors have a right (to inspect), and the builder has a duty (to let them inspect). If the Building Regulations do not serve to protect the interests of the individual purchaser of the building, what then is their purpose? It seems that they are no more than a means for the Council to maintain building standards ''in general'' and to prevent foreseeable ''dangers to life and limb'' while imposing no duty to maintain standards otherwise in each particular case.

References

{{Reflist
Full text of decision from BAILII.org
House of Lords cases English tort case law 1990 in case law 1990 in British law 1990s in Essex Borough of Brentwood