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I don't find it difficult to find a mistake here. What I find difficult to do is to find an example of a 'pure' misprediction. Our predictions as to the future are based upon current facts. If my prediction is wrong, it will either always, or almost always, be the case that this is because one of the pieces of information I used to make that prediction is wrong (ie I am mistaken).

So in Dextra Bank why could we not say that there was a mistake as to the intermediary's honesty, or a mistake as to Bank of Jamaica's current intentions, or a mistake as to what it was promising to do if the payment was made (and so on)?

The mistake/misprediction line is elusive. The reason for drawing it given by Birks and accepted by Goff in Dextra (at [29]), that to "act on the basis of a prediction is to accept the risk of disappointment" has always struck me as unpersuasive. I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. If I act on that basis today am I a risk-runner?

I suppose Kleinwort Benson v Lincoln CC can be seen as a misprediction case, but that is because the law can change with retrospective effect. There, of course, recovery was allowed.

R

<Duncan.Sheehan >:

Lewison J does say later on

It is plain in my judgment that a mistake of fact is capable of bringing the equitable jurisdiction into play. All that is required is a mistake of a sufficiently serious nature. In my judgment a mistake about an existing or pre-existing fact if sufficiently serious is enough to bring the jurisdiction into play. (at para 25)

He clearly knows what a mistake is, I think. It seems to me that there are two possibilities 1. Eoin's misprediction about the time of his death, 2. A mistake as to the current state of his health - from which he deduces time of death.

Number 2 counts - number 1 doesn't (or shouldn't). It's not easy to tell the difference though.