CAUSATION AND CONCURRENT CAUSE: PLANT CONSTRUCTION REVISITED

Plant Construction plc v Clive Adams Associates and JMH Construction Services Ltd [2000] BLR 205

Readers will recall that in Plant Construction plc v Clive Adams Associates and JMH Construction Services Ltd [2000] BLR 137 the Court of Appeal remitted to the trial judge (His Honour Judge Hicks QC) the question as to what difference it would have made to the collapse of the roof if JMH had ‘protested more vigorously’ against the use of the Ford design for the relevant method of roof support: see our May 2000 issue page 4. The Court of Appeal left undisturbed the trial judge’s finding that JMH should have done more to avert the collapse and thought that it was implicit in the original judgment of Judge Hicks that such protests would have precipitated steps sufficient to avoid the roof collapse, thereby giving JMH’s breach causative effect; but it recognised that, on the causation point, there was an arguable case to the contrary. Hence the referral to Judge Hicks, the outcome of which we consider here. In that decision, the judge (rejecting the application of a ‘but-for’ test of causation) held that it was enough to justify liability on JMH that their breach was one of two co-operating causes of the collapse and he concluded that JMH’s breach did indeed cause the collapse of the roof. Plant Construction plc v Clive Adams Associates and JMH Construction Services Ltd [2000] BLR 205.