Cases - F. G. Minter v Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation

Record details

Name

F. G. Minter v Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation

Date

[1980]

Citation

CA 13 BLR 1

Keywords

Construction – litigation – loss and expenses – financing charges – direct loss and expense – interest – interest foregone – global claims – recoverability of loss under a global claim

Summary

This case is notable for two reasons. First, it confirms that 'direct loss or expense' should be construed in accordance with the principles of the first limb in Hadley v Baxendale. Second, it confirms that financing charges are recoverable as a head of direct loss and expense.

The case is also important in the following respects:

• it confirms that in exercising discretionary powers under a traditional JCT contract, the architect should not only exercise due care and skill, but also reach decisions fairly, holding the balance between the client and the contractor. (See also Sutcliffe v Thackrah [1974] 4 BLR 16);
• it confirms that the building owner under a traditional JCT contract (either directly or via the architect) is under a positive duty to do all things necessary to enable the contractor to carry out the work. (See also Holland Hannen & Cubitts v Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation [1983] 18 BLR 80);
• it confirms that a programme that highlights with milestones when information is required from the architect is sufficient to satisfy the JCT requirement for the contractor to ask for the information at a time that is neither unreasonably distant from nor unreasonably close to the date on which it is necessary to receive the same;
• under the JCT 63 conditions (which are similar in this regard to the JCT Standard Form of Building Contract With Quantities 1998 (JCT 98) conditions), an application by the contractor is held not to be a condition precedent to the contractor's entitlement to an extension of time, but a breach of contract which the architect is entitled to take into account when making his or her assessment;
• the judge confirmed in relation to global claims that:
  'if application is made ... for the reimbursement of direct loss or expense attributable to more than one head of claim and at the time when the loss or expense comes to be ascertained it is impracticable to disentangle or disintegrate the part directly attributable to each head of claim, then, provided of course that the contractor has not unreasonably delayed in making the claim and so has himself created the difficulty, the architect must ascertain the global loss directly attributable to the two causes, disregarding, as in Crosby Ltd v Portland UDC [1967], any loss or expense which would have been recoverable if the claim had been made under one head in isolation and which would not have been recoverable under the other head taken in isolation'.