Edwards v West Herts Group Hospital Management Committee
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE HODSON,LORD JUSTICE MORRIS,LORD JUSTICE SELLERS |
| Judgment Date | 31 January 1957 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1957] EWCA Civ J0131-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 31 January 1957 |
[1957] EWCA Civ J0131-1
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Lord Justice Hodson,
Lord Justice Morris and
Lord Justice Sellers.
Mr NAVILLS FAULKS (instructed by Messrs hempsons) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Plaintiff).
Mr DFF MIDUERY (instructed by Messrs Sedgwioe Turner swoier & Wilson watford Norts) appearel on behalf of the Roepondente (Defendants).
This is an appeal from an order of his Honour Judge Oranville-smith County Court on the 24t September The appeal is by the plaintiff who is a doctor, and at tha material time he was employad by the defendants, the west Harts Group Hospital Management Cormittce, as a resident House Phystoian, or, as he was otherwise described as a House officer. He was employ by the Comilttee at the hospital, and one of the terms of his employment was that ha should live at a hostel provided by the defenlunts. We have not any specific evidence as to the exact lay-out of the premises; but it is ooncedad that the hostel was near the hospital, although not part of the hospital, and that the plaintiff (amongst others) lived in it How large a place it was, or how many other doctors were there, we do not know from the evidence.
We have seen a circular, which emanatea presumably from the Ministry of Health, concerning the negotiations between the Whitley Councils for the Health Services (Great Britain) and the British Medical Association setting out the terms and conditions of service of medical staff which cover this case. The contract accordingly was that this man was to get £425 a year and that a deduction of £185 per annum was to be made in respect of board and lodging and other services, so that from one point of view the plaintiff's salary was £425. From another point of view his total salary was £300, plus board and lodging valued at £125. That was the position of the plaintiff.
He took up his duties in July of 1955. He had a room at the hostel, and on the 17th December 1955 of the same year he came in at 2 o'clook in the morning and found that a number of articles of personal clothing, and so on, had been stolen. There is no finding of foot, and no one knows exactly the circumstances in which they were stolen whether anyone got in from outside, or whether some dishonest person stole the things in his room from inside. But he has claimed for their loss, one in the event of his claim being justified the sum has been fixed by the County Court Judge at £70, He bases his claim on two grounds. He says that the defendant Hospital Committee owed to him a duty "that they their servants or agents would take reasonable care" of his bedroom and of his clothes and personal effects, and of the key to the loor. That is the firot way in which he puts his claim. in the alternative it was, he said, an implied term of his contract of employment that the Hospital Committee should do what I have previously said the plaintiff claimed they were liable to do apart from the contract.
The particulars of negligence pleaded are to this effects:
That the defendants allowed the back door of the hostel to remain open; that they failed to employ a porter or caretaker other than between certain limited hours in the day; that they required the plaintiff to leave his bedroom door key in the look; that they failed to take any care of the key left for their use or to have any system by which, after the bedroom had been cleaned, the door was looked and the key kept in a safe place. There is then an allegation that they failed to take any steps to prevent unauthorised persons from entering the hostel and the plaintiff's bedroom.
The defendants' answer to this is a very short one indeed, It is that thay deny that they owe any duty of care to the plaintiff at all. The proposition of law for which they contend (and which was accepted by the learned County Court Judge) was that the general principle is that there is no duty upon the occuplor of premises to safeguard against theft of tha chattels by a third party who comes upon the premises. If you have a visitor to your hourse and he loses something you are not liable in law; and that applies, generally speaking as a rule of law to the occuplor of premises.
There is a recent case in which the general position is dealt with by this Court in particular by the Judgment of Lord Justice Jenkins, the case of Tinsley v. Dudley, reported in 1951 volume 2 King's Bench Division at page 16. At page 31 in the course of his Judgment Lord Justice Jenkins said this; "There is no warrant at all on the authorities, so far as I know, for holding that an invltor, where the invitation extends to the goods as well an the person of the invitee, thereby by implication of law assumes a liability to protect the invites and his goods, not merely from physical dangers arising from defects in the premises, but from the risk of the goods being stolen by some third party. That implied liability, so far as I know, is one unknown to the law.
That is the general position, and the exceptions to that general position are, according to the argument of Kr Widgery for the Hospital Committee, very limited in number. innkeepers are dealt with specially for partioular reasons, and there are exceptions in the case of guest houses or boarding houses whore people sorry on the business for gain of taking in guests. In those cases there is, I think, on the authorities a duty upon the boarding house keeper to take some care of the goods of his guests. There has been a oertain variation in the views taken by learned Judges on this topio in the past; but the matter appears to have been expressed very clearly in the case of Dansey v. Richardson (reported in volume 3, Ellis & Blackburn, at page 114) as long ago as 1864 when a Court of five Judges dealt with this matter in quite general terms. Mr Justice Erie said, for example, that he thought: "The main principle was that the defendant's duty was performed" - the defendant being a boarding house keeper "If she took such care of the house and things in it as a prudent owner would take", Mr Justice Wightman said: "I can find no authority for holding that a boarding house keeper is a bailee of the goods of his guest at all, or that he is bound to take more care about the goods of his guest - which are no further given into his care than by being in his house with the guest - than he, as a prudent owner, would take with respect to his own". Mr Justice Coleridge expressed an opin'on on the same lines, and Chief Justice Lord Campbell said: "The defendant did receive the plaintiff with her goods on the terms of providing her with rooms, furniture, meat, drink, servants attendance and other necessities, and of taking due and reasonable care of her goods while they were in the said house and plaintiff remained such guest therein: that is, such due and reasonable care as a boarding house keeper ought to take of the goods of a guest".
That I think may be taken to be the general position without entering into a discussion as to whether the duty varies having regard to the circumstances of particular cases. I think it is unnecessary to do that because in my judgment the duties which are relevant in what I may call the boarding house cases cannot possibly be said to arise here. In this case the position was not that the Hospital Committee were carrying on a boarding house in keeping this hostel for the benefit of the hospital staff any more than if the staff were resident in the hospital building itself and getting their food and lodging free The fact that the value of the food end lodging was quantified at the sum of £125 to my mind makes no difference.
The posit1on, therefore, is that this was simply a case of master and servant where the master was paying his servant partly in cash, and partly by giving him food and lodging, or its equivalent. The plaintiff in this case did not make any separate payment for this service; the money for the board and lodging was deducted from hla pay. He received the net sum in the same way that the domestic servant who is kept free receives a net sum.
The duty of a master towards his servant in those circumstances is not devoid of authority. There is a decision of this Court in ( Deyong v. Shenburn 1946 King's Bench division, page 227) a case which was concerned with a contract entered into between the plaintiff and the defendant to act the dame in a pantomlne for three weeks. The headnote says: "The rehearsals took place at a theatre and on the second day the plaintiff had stolen from his dressing-room his overcoat as well as two shawls and a pair of shoese forming part of his theatrical equipment". In the County Court the Judge found: "that the defendant had been negligent in falling to provide a look on the dressing-room door and in having no one at the stage door during the morning of the particular day to prevent the entry of unauthorised persons; but he hald that the defendant was not under a duty to protect the clothing from theft". The learned County Court Judge's decision in that case was upheld on the ground "that there was no duty on the...
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