Factory action broke causation chain

A factory owner who continued to use a water tank with a faulty thermolevel did so at his own risk, the Court of Appeal has held in an important case on causation.

The manufacturer of the deficient thermolevel bore no responsibility for a fire caused by the tank overheating because the factory owner knew the thermolevel was malfunctioning yet failed to properly monitor it. The case, Howmet Ltd v Economy Devices Ltd [2016] EWCA (Civ) 847, centred on whether the chain of causation was broken. It was accepted that the deficient thermolevel caused the fire to start but there were both deficiencies in Economy’s manufacture of the device and failures in Howmet’s monitoring of the tank.

The court held that Howmet’s use of the tank broke the chain of causation. 

On Howmet’s claim against Economy under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, Lord Justice Jackson, giving the lead judgment, said: “It was, rightly, common ground between counsel that there should be no difference in the principles of causation between a case in negligence and a case for breach of statutory duty under s 41 of the 1987 Act. Therefore, in agreement with the judge, I would hold that the claim for breach of statutory duty fails.”

Daniel West, associate at Berwins Leighton Paisner, said: “The decision in Howmet should prove useful in defending claims where a claimant has knowingly used a defective product.  

“The decision supplements the case of Lambert v Lewis [1981] 1 All ER 1185 where the court held that liability arose not from the defective design of the product but from the claimant’s own negligence in continuing to use the product in an unsafe condition after discovery of the defects. Such arguments could, potentially, defeat claims in negligence, contract and under the Consumer Protection Act 1987—albeit I suspect that courts will be more reluctant to find that a ‘consumer’ (as opposed to a commercial entity) had full knowledge of the risks involved in continuing to use a defective product.”