by Sarah Thomas
In this, the second of my New Year updates, I would like to discuss two interesting cases which have recently been decided by the UK courts. The first is the UK Court of Appeal upholding of a first instance judgment and the comments that the Court made on the recoverability of damages under English contract law.
The case is Supershield Limited v Siemens Building Technologies FE Ltd. As a reminder, the basic test under English law is that a party will recover losses flowing from the breach that (i) arise naturally, in the usual course of things, or (ii) are losses which the parties may reasonably be taken to have contemplated when entering into the contract (the “Hadley v. Baxendale” test, often known as the “remoteness” test). A previous recent development of this area resulted from the House of Lord’s decision in the Achilleas case which suggests that a defendant will not be liable for losses — even those which are not unusual and therefore potentially not too “remote” — which he cannot reasonably be regarded as having assumed responsibility for.
The facts of the Supershield case (whether Siemens could recover from its defaulting subcontractor the losses flowing from a series of failures in a water sprinkler system and in particular, the amount that Siemens had settled for a claim upstream with the main contractor) are not so important as what the Court said about the current interpretation of this remoteness rule. It held that Hadley v. Baxendale remains the standard rule and reflects “the expectation or intention reasonably to be imputed to the parties”. The Court went on to say that this can be interpreted so that “…if on the proper analysis of the Contract against its commercial background, the loss was within the scope of duty (i.e. what was within the contract breaker’s duty to prevent under the Contract) it cannot be regarded as too remote, even if it would not have occurred in ordinary circumstances”.
This means that under English law, a contract breaker can still be liable for damages even if those damages would have been considered unlikely by the parties when entering into the contract. Thus this judgment is important for its distinction between what “intention can be imputed between the parties” as to what damages should be covered and likelihood/foreseeability.
Another case, from a Scottish court, provides an interesting example of notice bars in a construction contract being strictly enforced in the UK. The case in question, Education 4 Ayrshire v South Ayrshire Council involved a contractor who had contracted to design and build six schools for the South Ayrshire Council under a PPP contract. During the works, asbestos that had not been revealed by a previous survey was discovered. This qualified as a “Works Compensation Event” under the contract, for which the Contractor might be entitled to an extension of time, payment of compensation and/or relief from its obligations but provided that the proper procedure was followed.
The Authority rejected the contractor’s claim for an extension of time and compensation on the basis that the contractor had failed to give the required notice in accordance with Clause 17 of the contract.
The judge agreed that the Contractor had not in fact complied with clause 17. He explained that once it is accepted that compliance with the notice clause is a condition precedent (and both parties agreed that it was), the question is simply, “what does the clause require?” In this case the clause required the Contractor to give notice of its claim. What the Contractor’s letter to the Authority about the delay actually said was “We will submit our full claim in accordance with clause 17.6 (…)”. This was held not to be valid notice under clause 17.6. A number of readers, particularly those from non-common law jurisdictions, will be surprised by this, as the Contractor had indeed flagged to the employer that a claim was being sought. But it just goes to show how strictly these notice provisions may be interpreted under English law and the need to follow ‘the letter of the contract’. You may recall that I answered a query on notices from a project manager recently (see Ask the Expert, February 2010) and warned of the need to check that the notice strictly complied with all formalities.
“But how is this equitable?” a number of you will cry. In the case, the judge said that the whole purpose of the clause is to give certainty – the Authority should not have to infer or assume from correspondence that a claim will be made. In this case, in accordance with the contractual notice provisions, the chief executive of the Authority was entitled to formal notification of a claim. The fact that those “on the ground” at the Authority may have been aware of the situation (the Authority was sent a copy of the survey report, attended a meeting to discuss its implications and had been provided with a copy of the Sub-Contractor’s claim against the Contractor in relation to the same event) was irrelevant.
Food for thought….
Please let me know if any of you have come across similar situations.
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