ARCHITECTS, NEGLIGENCE AND THE APPORTIONMENT OF LOSS

Sahib Foods Ltd v Paskin Kyriakides Sands [2003] EWCA Civ 1832; [2003] All ER (D) 389 (Dec)

In Sahib Foods Ltd v Paskin Kyriakides Sands [2003] EWCA Civ 1832; [2003] All ER (D) 389 (Dec), the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal in part from the decision of Judge Bowsher QC (on which see our March 2003 issue, pp.1–3). The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from Judge Bowsher’s finding 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. But they allowed the appeal in relation to his refusal to reduce the damages payable to the claimants under the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945. The Court of Appeal stated that the correct approach to take in cases in which contributory negligence is alleged is set out in s1(1) of the Act, namely to ask whether the case is one in which the claimant suffered damage ‘as the result partly of its own fault and partly of the fault’ of the defendant. On the present facts, the claimants were responsible for the cause of the fire and they were also found by the Court of Appeal (in this respect rejecting the finding of Judge Bowsher) to be partly responsible for the spread of the fire. This was therefore a case in which damages fell to be reduced under the Act. The Court of Appeal concluded that the damages recoverable by the claimants from the defendants should be reduced by two-thirds and that the claimants should be entitled to recover one-third of their damages attributable to the spread of the fire.