Rimmer v Liverpool City Council

A landowner who designs or builds premises owes persons foreseeably affected by dangerous faults of design or construction a duty to take reasonable care for their safety. Selling or letting the premises does not confer immunity merely because the designer or builder was also the owner.

An occupier’s knowledge of the danger does not by itself extinguish that duty. It does so only where the occupier was genuinely free to remove or avoid the danger, and it was reasonable to expect that course. The immunity of a landlord acting only as landlord remains confined to that distinct situation.

The plaintiff was injured after stumbling in his council flat and putting his hand through a thin internal glass panel. The council had designed and built the block and later let the flat to him. He had previously complained that the panel was dangerously thin.

A judge sitting in the High Court awarded £2,500 damages. He found the panel foreseeably dangerous and held that a landlord must take reasonable steps to ensure that premises are reasonably safe before letting them. The council appealed. The central issue was whether it owed a common-law duty of care, since the pleaded statutory claims under the Defective Premises Act 1972 afforded no remedy.

Appeal dismissed. Stephenson LJ delivered the judgment of the court.

1. The trial judge had formulated the duty too widely. A court below the House of Lords could not hold that every landlord must consider whether premises are reasonably safe before letting them. The immunity of a landlord acting merely as landlord remained too firmly established for this court to abolish.

2. The council was not merely a landlord. Through its architects’ department it had designed the flat, and through its direct works department it had built it. A landowner who designs or builds premises has no immunity from responsibility for negligent design or construction merely because it subsequently sells or lets them. The council therefore owed the plaintiff, as a person foreseeably affected by the panel, a duty to take reasonable care that he was reasonably safe from personal injury caused by it.

3. The judge’s findings that the panel created a foreseeable risk and that reasonable care had not been taken were soundly based and could not be disturbed. The council knew the glass’s thickness and ought to have appreciated the danger created by its position, dimensions and lack of protection.

4. The plaintiff’s knowledge of the thin glass did not exonerate the council. Knowledge or an opportunity to inspect does not, without more, destroy proximity to the person who created the danger. It has that effect only where the injured person was genuinely free to remove or avoid the danger, it was reasonable to expect that response, and running the risk was unreasonable. It was neither reasonable nor practical to expect this tenant to leave the flat or alter the panel.

5. Cavalier v Pope [1906] AC 428 was distinguished rather than overruled. The landlord there had not designed or constructed the dangerous floor. The present council was a builder-owner and architect, so the confined immunity of a bare landlord did not apply.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

1. Court of Appeal: Dismissed the council’s appeal and upheld its liability in negligence, while narrowing the duty formulated below to the duty owed by a landowner acting as designer and builder.
2. High Court, Queen’s Bench Division, Liverpool District Registry: His Honour Judge Nance, sitting as a High Court judge, awarded the plaintiff £2,500 damages with interest after finding the glass panel foreseeably dangerous and the council in breach of a common-law duty of care. No citation is stated.