The plaintiff was a young woman who had recently passed her driving test and had no mechanical knowledge of cars. She asked the first defendant, a close friend, to find for her a suitable car to buy which had not been involved in an accident. The first defendant was not a mechanic but he had bought and sold cars before at a profit and had helped obtain a car for a cousin of the plaintiff. There was no question of the first defendant’s receiving any payment from the plaintiff and he acted solely out of friendship. The second defendant, a car paint sprayer and panel beater, had a one-year-old low-mileage Volkswagen Golf for sale which he described as having “a lot of make-up” but thought that it would be suitable for a woman to drive. The first defendant noticed that the bonnet had been “crumpled” and either straightened or replaced, but he considered that the car was in good overall condition and he recommended that the plaintiff should buy it for £4,500. A few months after purchase, it became apparent that the car had been involved in a bad accident and had been poorly repaired, with the consequence that it was unroadworthy. The plaintiff was awarded damages against both defendants, the first defendant being in breach of his duty to take reasonable care and the second defendant for breach of the implied term of merchantable quality in the Sale of Goods Act 1979, s. 14(2). The Court of Appeal dismissed the first defendant’s appeal, holding that the latter was liable to the plaintiff in negligence.

The first defendant argued that the general rule of English law was that, while a gratuitous agent owed a duty of care and skill in carrying out the principal’s instructions, the standard of care to be observed was less than that demanded of a paid agent. Until Chaudhry, this was thought to be the legal position even though the differentiation of standards between the two classes of agent has long been thought to be anachronistic, particularly in the light of modern tortious developments.2