Members may be interested in Spread Trustee Company Limited v Sarah Ann Hutcheson & others [2011] UKPC 13, a long and complicated judgment in an appeal from Guernsey to the Privy Council, in which (itself unusual for the PC) there was a 3-2 split, but even more unusually, the three judges in the majority issued separate opinions, as did the two in the minority.

This heavily contested judgment was concerned with the question of whether, before 1991 and 1989 (the dates on which legislation addressing or touching upon this issue was introduced), under Guernsey law, the terms of a trust could exclude the liability of a trustee for a breach of trust arising from the trustee's gross negligence. The majority, following, among other authorities, Armitage v Nurse [1998] Ch 241, concluded that it could.

I am afraid I cannot provide much more by way of summary, as I am still reading the judgment(s), which span(s) a wide array of topics, including statutory construction, the position under English, Scots and Jersey law, the difference between negligence and gross negligence, retrospective effect of legislation etc.

Kind regards,

Colin