British Telecommunications Plc v EDF Energy and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Akenhead |
| Judgment Date | 27 February 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 932 (TCC) |
| Date | 27 February 2014 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Technology and Construction Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: HT-10-95 |
[2014] EWHC 932 (TCC)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
TECHNOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTION COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Akenhead
Case No: HT-10-95
Mr Geraint Wheatley appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Ms Sadie Crapper appeared on behalf of the First Defendant
Ms Sarah McCann appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant
These proceedings were issued in 2009 and they relate to a fire at the Claimant's premises which the claimant suggests was attributable to the breach of statutory duty, breach of a duty of care, and pursuant to the ruling in Rylands v Fletcher [1868] UKHL 1, and was the fault and responsibility of what is now the First Defendant.
I am assuming, but I may be wrong, that there was some pre-action correspondence between the parties and that has broadly been confirmed by Ms Crapper for the First Defendant.
It is clear from the Particulars of Claim that the Claimant pleaded that the First Defendant was liable in its capacity as electricity supplier to the relevant building in Chatham, Kent, and also as the distributor for the purposes of the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002.
The claim is not by the standards of this court a large one. Proceedings were started in the Mercantile list in Leeds District Registry. A Defence was put in reasonably promptly and it unequivocally took the point of denying that the First Defendant was either the supplier or distributor, positively pleading that the distributor was the party which has now become the Second Defendant and later in the pleading identifying the supplier as Npower, a fact which, if it was not known, certainly should have been known by the Claimant who doubtless would have been paying bills to Npower for electricity supply for a number of years, probably five or six years, before the fire.
These proceedings got caught up in what has been referred to as test proceedings, in particular a series of cases which were heard together which this court (indeed, I) dealt with in May 2012 with the judgment coming out on 17 September 2012 ( Smith & Ors v South Eastern Power Networks Plc [2012] EWHC 2541 (TCC) (17 September 2012). There were five actions heard together and there was a debate, as far as I recall in 2011 or possibly 2012, as to whether these BT proceedings should be heard at the same time. For reasons which were considered appropriate at the time, these proceedings did not form part of those "test" proceedings which were jointly heard together. Judgment was given in September 2012 but the proceedings in the...
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