AC Billings and Sons v Riden, 1958 AC 240
Citation:AC Billings and Sons v Riden, 1958 AC 240
Rule of thumb:If builders or contractors are doing work on a property, do they have to close it all off if they leave? Yes, if builders are doing work, they must adequately warn people to avoid the area.
Background facts:
The facts were that a path was being made by builders in a house. They did not finish the work, and then a visitor to the property fell on the work to their injury.
Parties argued:
The visitor argued that there was not adequate warning of this by the builder as the occupier of that part of the property. The builder argued that the owner of the house was the occupier and that they had to warn visitors about this.
Judgment:
The Court upheld the arguments of the visitor and made the builder liable. The Court affirmed that any time work is being done on a property the builder is under a duty to fence it all off and provide adequate warning about this. The Court held that the danger was not sufficiently obvious and did not uphold this defence, and the Court further explained that sometimes a warning is not enough, with actual measures taken to mitigate the danger.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘There may be many cases in which warning is an adequate discharge of the duty . . but there are other cases when that is not so … The conclusion to be drawn from these cases appears to me to be that there is no magic in giving a warning. If the plaintiff knew the danger, either because he was warned or from his own knowledge and observation, the question is whether the danger was such that in the circumstances no sensible man would have incurred it or, in other words, whether the plaintiff’s exposing himself to the danger was a want of common or ordinary prudence on his part. If it was not, the fact that he voluntarily or knowingly incurred the danger does not entitle the defendant to escape from liability… (not a) paragon of circumspection’.
‘But in my opinion their duty to visitors required them to mitigate the result of their interference in so far as in all the circumstances it was reasonable that they should do so, and I think that their own defence in this case shows that it would have been reasonable when they left off work to lay down a plank walk over the rough rubble path. But even if I am wrong in that, I think that they were still at fault. I leave aside the point that they made this route possible by removing the railing at the top of the ramp because that point was not dealt with at the trial and some explanation might have emerged if it had been. But they should have given warning against use of this route instead of advising its use, and, if they had done so, it is by no means improbable that matters would have developed in such a way that the Respondent would never have taken this route. I am therefore of opinion that, in so far as the danger of the route contributed to cause the accident, the Appellants are liable to the Respondent’, Lord Reid
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.