Introduction - Building Contract Claims - page 10

touching upon this point in the Court of Appeal is far from clear. His
lordship disagreed with Parker J as to the breaking of the chain of causation
but did not, seemingly, express disagreement with Parker J as to the poss-
ible personal liability of architect and quantity surveyor.
In Michael Salliss & Co Ltd v. ECA Calil 18 , the contractor sued Mr and Mrs
Calil and the architects, W. F. Newman & Associates. It was claimed that the
architects owed a duty of care to the contractor. The claim fell into two
categories:

. Failure to provide the contractors with accurate and workable drawings
. Failure to grant an adequate extension of time and undercertification of
work done.

The court held that the architect had no duty of care to the contractors
in respect of surveys, specifications or ordering of variations, but he
did owe a duty of care in certification. It was held to be self-evident
that the architect owed a duty to the contractor not to negligently

undercertify.

'If the architect unfairly promotes the building employer's interest by low
certification or merely fails properly to exercise reasonable care and skill
in his certification it is reasonable that the contractor should not only
have the right as against the owner to have the certificate revised in
arbitration but also should have the right to recover damages against
the unfair architect.' 19

In arriving at that conclusion, the court was following the rules laid down
by many courts. In Campbell v. Edwards 20 , the Court of Appeal said that the
law had been transformed since the decisions of the House of Lords in
Sutcliffe v. Thackrah 21 and Arenson v. Arenson 22 because contractors now
had a cause of action in negligence against certifiers and valuers. Before
these cases, certifiers had been protected because the Court of Appeal in
Chambers v. Goldthorpe 23 had held that certifiers were quasi-arbitrators. The
House of Lords overruled that in 1974. Until the Pacific Associates case, at no
time in the history of English law had it been doubted that architects owed a
duty to contractors in certifying. After all, there was no need even to invent
the doctrine of quasi-arbitrators if there was no liability for negligence. In
the Arenson case, in reference to the possibility of the architect negligently
undercertifying, it was said:

'In a trade where cash flow is perceived as important, this might have
caused the contractor serious damage for which the architect could have
been successfully sued. 24

18

(1987) 4 Const LJ 125.

19

(1987) 4 Const LJ 125 at 130 per Judge Fox-Andrews.

20

[1976] 1 All ER 785.

21

[1974] 1 All ER 859.

22

[1975] 3 All ER 901.

23

[1901] 1 KB 624.

24

[1975] 3 All ER 901 at 924 per Lord Salmon.