Candler v Crane Christmas [1951] 2 KB 164
Citation:Candler v Crane Christmas [1951] 2 KB 164
Link to case on WorldLII (reference).
Rule of thumb:What does professional services mean? It means that a higher technical level of services is expected to be provided. Accountants, investors, architects ,and surveyors are also considered to be professionals, alongside lawyers and doctors who were traditionally the professionals, and they are expected to carry out their work with a ‘professional level’ of diligence, skill, care and accuracy.
Background facts:
Judgment:
‘Let me now be constructive and suggest the circumstances in which I say that a duty to use care in statement does exist apart from a contract in that behalf. First, what persons are under such a duty? My answer is those persons such as accountants, surveyors, valuers and analysts, whose profession and occupation it is to examine books, accounts, and other things, and to make reports on which other people – other than their clients – rely in the ordinary course of business. Their duty is not merely a duty to use care in the reports. They have also a duty to use care in their work which results in their reports. Herein lies the difference between these professional men and other persons who have been held to be under no duty to use care in their statements, such as promoters who issue a prospectus: Derry v. Peek (now altered by statute), and trustees who answer enquiries about the trust funds: Low v. Bouverie . Those persons do not bring, and are not expected to bring, any professional knowledge or skill into the preparation of their statements: they can only be made responsible by the law affecting persons generally, such as contract, estoppel, innocent misrepresentation or fraud. But it is very different with persons who engage in a calling which requires special knowledge and skill. From very early times it has been held that they owe a duty of care to those who are closely and directly affected by their work, apart altogether from any contract or undertaking in that behalf. … The same reasoning has been applied to medical men who make reports on the sanity of others: Everett v. Griffiths. It is, I think, also applicable to professional accountants. They are not liable, of course, for casual remarks made in the course of conversation, nor for other statements made outside their work, or not made in their capacity as accountants: compare Fish v. Kelly (78); but they are; in my opinion, in proper cases, apart from any contract in the matter, under a duty to use reasonable care in the preparation of their accounts and in the making of their reports." Lord Denning
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.