Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 10:37:08 +0100

From: Andrew Tettenborn

Subject: Duties of care - again - in the HL

The HL today put another hopeless claim out of its misery in Sutradhar v NERC [2006] UKHL 33.

Acting for the Overseas Development Agency, the British NERC tested the water in a number of wells in Bangladesh and gave it a clean bill of health. The Bangladeshi government sank lots more wells for drinking purposes. The claimant alleged that he drank the stuff & suffered arsenical poisoning. He sued the NERC, saying they (a) negligently failed to test for arsenic, and (b) negligently said there wasn't any arsenic.

Held, upholding a majority of the CA, nothing doing. The claim for failure to test was omission, & there was nothing to take it out of the normal rule. The other one, albeit that personal injury was at stake, failed for lack of a duty of care. There wasn't nearly enough nearness or proximity. NERC were in the same position as a negligent textbook writer, who isn't liable (phew!). Older cases making regulatory authorities liable (e.g. Perrett v Collins) were distinguished on the basis that there's a difference between controlling what we do (authorities) and merely doing something that might cause us to act in a particular way.

Happy summer reading

Andrew

--
Andrew Tettenborn MA LLB
Bracton Professor of Law
University of Exeter, England

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