Solicitor

The Chancery Division dismissed the defendant’s application for an order for costs against a firm of solicitors for the alleged breach of a warranty of authority. The defendant had contended that, by issuing proceedings on behalf of the claimant, the solicitors had warranted that they had had authority to act on the claimant’s behalf when, following the determination of preliminary issues, it was in the fact the case that they had had no such authority. The court held that the warranty had been given at the outset of the proceedings, but had no longer been given after a certain period and that the defendant had failed to establish that he had relied on the warranty in the sense that he had been induced by it to act to his prejudice.