Cases - Pegram Shopfitters Ltd v Tally Wiejl (UK) Ltd
Record details
- Name
- Pegram Shopfitters Ltd v Tally Wiejl (UK) Ltd
- Date
- [2003]
- Citation
- EWCA Civ 1750
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Construction contracts - adjudication - contract in writing - certainty of terms - adjudicator - jurisdiction - enforcement of adjudicator's decision - whether there was a contract in writing - whether there was a construction contract - whether the adjudicator had jurisdiction - whether the Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) 1998 SI 1998/649 applied - JCT Prime Cost Standard Form of Contract 1998 - the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, section 107 and section 108
- Summary
-
Both parties contended that there was a construction contract in being, but were at odds as to the terms and conditions that applied to it - each having promoted their own terms at different times. But it was the defendant's crystal clear contention, both before the adjudicator and before the judge, that, if no contract was concluded on the JCT Prime Cost Terms, there was no contract at all and the claimants were entitled to be paid a reasonable sum for the work they had carried out.
Both the adjudicator and the first instance judge proceeded along the lines that both parties were contending that a construction contract existed (even though they were proposing that different contracts applied) and that the Act therefore applied to their contract. However, such a conclusion ignored the defendant's alternative contention that if the terms that they proposed did not apply, then there was no contract in place.
The Court of Appeal found in favour of the defendant's argument that summary judgment should not be given in favour of the claimant because the defendant had a real, not fanciful, prospect of establishing that the adjudicator acted without jurisdiction. It was argued that the adjudicator was appointed under the provisions of the Scheme for Construction Contracts when the Scheme did not apply; because on one view there was no written construction contract within section 107 of the 1996 Act at all; and because he had no jurisdiction to determine his own jurisdiction.