Cases - Serck Controls Ltd v Drake & Scull Engineering Ltd

Record details

Name

Serck Controls Ltd v Drake & Scull Engineering Ltd

Date

(1997)

Citation

73 ConLR 100

Keywords

Contract - no concluded contract - payment - quantum meruit - whether the claimant was entitled to payment on a quantum meruit basis

Summary

The claimant carried out design and installation work for the defendant, as part of the construction of a replacement research and development facility for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. The basis of the quantum trial was that the claimant was entitled to be paid on a quantum meruit basis, there having been no concluded contract between the parties. HHJ Hicks QC considered that:

'A quantum meruit claim may...arise in wide variety of circumstances, across a spectrum which ranges at one end from an express contract to do work at an unquantified price, which expressly or by implication must then be a reasonable one, to work (at the other extreme) done by an uninvited intruder which nevertheless confers on the recipient a benefit which for some reason, such as estoppel or acquiescence, it is unjust for him to retain without making restitution to the provider....At the first end of the spectrum...the measure should clearly be the reasonable remuneration of the claimant; at the other it should be the value to the defendant. In between there is a borderline, the position of which may be debatable.'