DAMAGES FOR NON-PECUNIARY LOSS

Farley v Skinner [2002] BLR 1

Martin Graham

A surveyor who negligently fails to warn his client of the noise made by aircraft passing over a property may be liable for any distress and inconvenience his negligence causes the client. The common law’s traditional response to breach of contract was to compensate claimants exclusively for economic losses. In recent times this principle has been eroded so that in appropriate cases contractual damages have increasingly come to reflect a claimant’s inconvenience and mental distress. The House of Lords has now given express approval to this trend in Farley v Skinner [2002] BLR 1.