ARCHITECTS, NEGLIGENCE AND THE APPORTIONMENT OF LOSS

Sahib Foods Ltd v Paskin Kyriakides Sands [2003] EWHC 142 (TCC); [2003] All ER (D) 15 (March)

In Sahib Foods Ltd v Paskin Kyriakides Sands [2003] EWHC 142 (TCC); [2003] All ER (D) 15 (March) Judge Bowsher QC found that the defendant architects had breached the duty of care which they owed to the claimant leaseholders of a factory which had been destroyed in a fire. The fire started as a result of the negligence of employees of the claimants but it spread more quickly as a result of the defendants’ breach of duty in relation to the design of the room in which the fire started, in particular their failure to design the room with fire resistant materials. Judge Bowsher ordered that damages be assessed on the basis that the judge first assessed the total loss to the claimants from the fire and then deducted from that sum the total of what would have been lost if the fire had been contained as it ought to have been.