Essay On Professional Negligence

Professional Negligence

“The word ‘profession’ used to be confined to the three learned professions, the Church, Medicine and Law. It has now, I think, a wider meaning”

Scrutin L.J.

A liability may be dual in both contract and tort. A contract is basically an agreement between parties outlining their duties and responsibilities to one another. Contract laws outline what a person can or cannot include in a contract, and what the remedies are if a party breaches their contractual duties. Tort laws govern situations where one person has harmed or injured another person. Tort laws cover violations where the party intentionally harmed the other person.

Negligence simply put, is the failure to take proper care over something.

Professional negligence relates to a professional occupation that has a duty of care to its clients, where the professional has been neglectful in his duties and the client has consequently suffered some form of loss in most cases physical or financial. Professional negligence arises when the professional you have engaged to provide a service fails in their duty to provide that service through negligence. In order to prove that a professional is negligent, it is necessary to establish that no reasonable competent professional, in the relevant field, at the relevant time, with the same qualifications and expertise, faced with the same circumstances, would have acted in the same way.

Examples of professional negligence in the construction industry would be incorrectly designed/constructed property, failure to identify property defects and giving poor advice. These examples would normally relate to Engineers or Architects. Within the housing market, professional negligence can be demonstrated by conveyancers, a...

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...reme Court has concluded that the High Court erred in its conclusion on the issue of contributory negligence. The Supreme Court allowed KBC banks appeal. The Surpreme Court has remitted this matter back to the High Court for "further consideration" of the issue of contributory negligence. Mr Justice Brian McGovern found the breach of duty by the firm amounted to "a deception" because it was aware the required security was not in place but led the bank to believe it was. This was not about a single act of negligence but "multiple failures" repeated across four separate loan transactions, he ruled. KBC, he ruled, was entitled to damages on a "no transaction" basis - it would not have made the loans if the solicitors had told it the necessary security was not in place. KBC was entitled to recover the full amount of the loans advanced, plus certain costs and stamp duty.