Negligence

In considering whether a duty of care was owed, particularly in a construction context involving duties owed by parties who were only involved at all by reason of the contracts which they had entered into, the court needed to consider the contractual context in which such parties were involved in the first place. The court needed to consider what the party owing the duty to the other was contractually engaged to do. It was always necessary to consider what the scope of a tortious duty of care was. That scope was primarily determinable by reference to what the party owing the duty was at least broadly employed to do or actually did. It did not follow that, simply because a party was in breach of the contract pursuant to which it was involved in the project in question, it would be in breach of a duty of care owed to someone who was not a party to that contract.