W v Home Office
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 19 February 1997 |
| Date | 19 February 1997 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Woolf, Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Thorpe and Lord Justice Waller
Immigration - detention decision does not give rise to duty of care
A immigration officer's decision whether to detain a person under the Immigration Act 1971 did not give rise to any duty of care which could result in an action for negligence.
The Court of Appeal so held in a reserved judgment dismissing an appeal by the plaintiff asylum seeker, W, against the dismissal by Sir Michael Davies, sitting as a judge of the Queen's Bench Division on June 6, 1996 on the trial of preliminary issues, dismissing his action for damages for negligence against the Home Office.
Mr Nicholas Blake, QC and Mr Tim Owen for the plaintiff; Mr John Howell, QC and Mr Robin Tam for the Home Office.
THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS, giving the judgment of the court, said that the question was whether the Home Secretary or an immigration officer owed a duty of care to an individual detained by virtue of paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 when making a decision whether to release that individual from detention and when taking the steps were required reach that decision.
The plaintiff wished to push forward the boundaries of the tort of negligence or, as he submitted, revive a forgotten cause of action of negligent detention.
Many authorities had considered recently where the boundaries should be drawn. The applicable principles were:
1 For a duty of care to arise, in addition to the foreseeability of damage, necessary ingredients were that there should exist between the party owing the duty and the party to whom the duty was owed a relationship of proximity and that the situation should be one in which the court considered it fair, just and reasonable that the law should impose a duty.
2 It would normally be unnecessary to embark on any further inquiry whether it was fair, just and reasonable if a person had assumed responsibility to another in respect of services.
3 The mere existence of a relationship brought about by one party exercising a statutory power vis-a-vis another was not sufficient to found proximity on its own.
4 There could be no liability in respect of anything done within the ambit of a discretion conferred by statute.
5 It was less likely that a duty of care would be imposed on a person exercising his public duty, that is, even where the statutory duty was being implemented, if:
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