Stevens v Blaenau : The effect of previous complaints from tenants on a local authority's liability in negligence
Stevens v Blaenau : The effect of previous complaints from tenants on a local authority's liability in negligence
Stevens v Blaenau Gwent County Borough
[2004] EWCA Civ 715 – Court of Appeal (Potter and Carnwath LLJ, Bodey J)
The Defendant local authority successfully appealed against a decision that it was negligent in failing to install window locks on the windows of a property occupied by the Claimant, an infant, and his family. The Claimant had fallen out of a window, sustaining personal injuries.
The reason given by the Defendant for not doing so was that it had a blanket policy of not fitting window locks, on the grounds of fire safety. This had been found to be justifiable by the trial judge. Interestingly, in the earlier Court of Appeal decision of Adams v Rhymney Valley District Council (2001) PNLR 68, a local authority had not been found negligent in the opposite scenario, i.e. where window locks had been fitted and the occupants of the premises were unable to escape when a fire broke out. Hence, although a duty is clearly owed under Rimmer v Liverpool City Council [1985] Q.B. 1, this seems to be an area where local authorities will be allowed some latitude.
The local authority’s policy not being criticised, the real question in this appeal hearing was the effect of complaints previously made by the Claimant’s mother about the danger of the Claimant falling out of the window. The trial judge had found assistance in the case of Stockley v Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council (1986) 279 EG 677. This was a case where a tenant had complained about a frozen pipe in the roof of a building, and the local authority were found to have acted unreasonably upon being told this information – with the result being that the pipe burst and the tenant’s house was flooded. The trial judge held that a duty of care could arise where “the landlord council had been specifically warned of a danger, that they had been asked to help to abate or minimise that danger and that they had declined to do so and that it was unreasonable for them to so decline” (para. 16, or para. 11 of the CA judgment). Applying Stockley in this case appeared to extend the concept of ‘danger’ to almost any tenant complaint about safety.
The question was what was reasonable in the individual circumstances of the case. The Court found that the trial judge was wrong to draw an analogy with Stockley. Stockley had been decided with reference to Goldman v Hargrove [1967] 1 AC 645, and on the basis that the situation was an emergency or external threat. Mrs Stevens’ “subjective” complaints were not of that nature, and did not require the local authority to take different and exceptional measures.