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A v Essex County Council
[2003] EWCA Civ 1848, [2004] 1 WLR 1881, [2004] LGR 587, [2004] 1 FCR 660, [2004] 1 FLR 749, (2004) Times, 22 January, 148 Sol Jo LB 27, [2003] All ER (D) 321 (Dec)
Court: CA
Judgment Date: 17/12/2003
Case History
Annotations | Case Name | Citations | Court | Date | Signal |
- | A v Essex County Council | [2003] EWCA Civ 1848, [2004] 1 WLR 1881, [2004] LGR 587, [2004] 1 FCR 660, [2004] 1 FLR 749, (2004) Times, 22 January, 148 Sol Jo LB 27, [2003] All ER (D) 321 (Dec) | CA | 17/12/200 | |
Affirming | A v Essex County Council | [2002] EWHC 2707 (QB), [2003] 1 FLR 615, [2003] Fam Law 148, [2003] NLJR 22, [2003] PIQR P21, (2003) Times, 24 January, [2002] All ER (D) 273 (Dec) | QBD | 18/12/200 |
NEGLIGENCE - DUTY OF CARE - LOCAL AUTHORITY ADOPTION AGENCY - EXTENT OF DUTY TO PROVIDE PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE PARENTS WITH INFORMATION ABOUT CHILDREN
The claimants had been formally approved as adoptive parents. A brother and sister, W and K, were placed with the claimants with a view to adoption. The claimants experienced considerable difficulty with W's violent and destructive behaviour, but went ahead with the adoption application. The adoption orders were subsequently made.The claimants claimed damages from the defendant local authority adoption agency, contending that it had been negligent in failing to inform them of the extent of W's difficulties. They argued that had they been fully informed of what was known about W they would not have taken the children on in the first place. The claimants had suffered physical damage to their home, and had each suffered psychiatric injury and been assaulted on many occasions. The judge held that the agency was liable to the claimants for failing to provide them with 'all relevant information' about the children. The claimant appealed against that holding. The judge further held that the defendant was only liable for injury, loss and damage sustained between the time the children were placed with the claimants as prospective adopters and the date of the adoption orders. The claimants appealed against that decision.The claimants submitted that the defendant had a duty to supply prospective adoptive parents with all relevant information, and that what was relevant could be judged by what had been put before the agency's adoption panel.
Held - The appeal and the cross appeal would be dismissed.
(1) There was no general duty of care owed by an adoption agency or the staff whom it employed in relation to deciding what information was to be conveyed to prospective adopters. Only if they took a decision which no agency could reasonably take could there be liability. However, once the agency had decided, either in general or in particular, what information should be given, there was a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that information was both given and received. On the evidence in the instant case, that duty had been broken, because the claimants had not received all the information which the agency had decided they should have been given. Had they been given all that information the extent of the difficulties would have been revealed, which would have taken the claimants beyond the limits of what they had been prepared to take on.
(2) The judge had been right to treat the date of the adoption orders as the cut off point for the claimant's claim.The judge had been entitled to find that by the time that the adoption orders were made, quite enough had happened to enable the claimants to know enough about W to make a decision for themselves.
