Hedley Byrne v Heller

The great case of Hedley Byrne v Heller [1964] AC 465, known reverently to all students of the law as Hedley Byrne which established as long ago as 1964 the principle that one might be liable in tort for negligent misstatement, nothing more than confirming something that Lord Denning had dissentingly been grumbling about since 1951.

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Some irony, therefore, that in that particular case, the defendant was found not to have had a duty of care, since he had effectively disclaimed one. Lord Devlin found that there was a “general disclaimer of responsibility” which appeared to him to be conclusive. He agreed with Lord Reid and he stated (at p.533):-

“A man cannot be said voluntarily to be undertaking a responsibility if at the very moment when he is said to be accepting it he declares that in fact he is not. The problem of reconciling words of exemption with the existence of a duty arises only when a party is claiming exemption from a responsibility which he has already undertaken or which he is contracting to undertake.”

Similar ground recently gone over in the context of a disclaimer by the Irish Supreme Court in Walsh v Jones Lang Lasalle.

See also

• Negligent misstatement
• Walsh v Jones Lang Lasalle