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Love thy vulnerable tenant - X and
Y v London Borough of Hounslow 23 May 2008
13 June 2008
This case has serious implications for those
local authorities working in multi-disciplinary teams, particularly
in the areas of social care, housing and mental health. It has
potential to affect all those working with vulnerable children and
adults and is timed well, coinciding with the Law Commission’s
Announcement of 11 June 2008 concerning proposed reform of social
care law.
The claimants were a married couple with
learning difficulties. They lived, with Y’s two children (aged 8
and 11), in a two bedroomed flat on the ninth floor of a block of
flats in Feltham. The local authority was their landlord and
was also involved in the provision of some support to the
family.
The family were befriended and later taken
advantage of by a number of youths on the estate they lived on. The
youths would use the claimants’ flat to live, take drugs, engage in
sexual activity, leave stolen goods and truant. X was assaulted
quite seriously by one of the youths who believed X had ‘grassed’
on him in relation to some stolen goods found at the flat. This was
all known to the defendant.
This activity culminated on a particular
weekend when the youths imprisoned the claimants in their own home
and repeatedly assaulted and abused them, often in the presence of
the two children.
The claim
The claimants alleged that the defendant
should have moved them into alternative accommodation before the
relevant weekend. They alleged that the failure to do so
represented a breach of the defendant’s duty of care to them.
The defendant argued that the claimants were
effectively challenging a failure to re-house them and had no right
to bring an action in negligence for breach of duty.
The existence and nature of the duty
of care owed
Maddison, J ruled that the defendant should be
treated as a single entity since each of departments were
under a duty to communicate to each other any information which
suggested that the claimants and their children were, or might be,
in danger.
He considered the appropriate test to be that
set out in Caparo Industries Ltd v Dickman [1990] and
concluded that the gradually mounting concern about the welfare and
safety of the claimants made it reasonably foreseeable from an
early stage that the claimants and/or their children might come to
serious harm resulting from an attack of the kind that
occurred. The defendant was the claimants’ landlord and more
importantly, was aware of the claimants’ disabilities, providing
social services for them and indeed their children. There was
therefore a sufficiently close relationship between the
parties.
The learned Judge found that the defendants
were not under a duty to move the claimants before the relevant
weekend. However, they became under a duty to protect them in
response to the developing crisis before the weekend in question.
This narrow duty could be imposed in response to the ‘unusual
but dangerous’ situation that had developed.
Breach of duty
The court concluded that there had been a
‘lack of proper cooperation and communication between the
social services and housing departments’ and that the
defendant had breached its duty of care to the claimants.
Maddison, J held that the claim was not based simply on narrow
considerations of the defendant’s housing policy. The claim
involved both the housing and social services departments
and focussed on their interaction and the manner in which they
reacted to information they received about the claimants.
He concluded the claimants had a cause of
action and the defendant’s subsequent breach of the duty of care
owed to them had caused the injury and loss alleged.
Implications for local
authorities
- This case indicates a willingness by the courts to treat the
acts and omissions of separate local authority departments as one.
In addition, it makes local authorities accountable for ensuring
that their internal relationships and communications are effective.
It has implications for children’s services departments, and
similar consideration will apply to education and social care
professionals who may need to share information, and responsibility
for protecting children
- Several references are made throughout the judgment to the
unique features involved in this case that justified the
application of such a narrowly defined duty of care, but it is to
be recognised that the law in this area has become fragmented and
unclear
- The Law Commission’s review will cover adult residential care,
community care and support for carers. The Commission argues that
the legislative framework for these areas has so far developed in a
piecemeal fashion making the law fragmented and difficult to
understand and apply
The defendant is intending to appeal.
For more information or advice, please contact
Sarah
Erwin-Jones or Emily Birkett.
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