Legal Case Summary
Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] AC 728
The availability of a duty of care in negligence
Facts
The local authority approved building plans for a block of flats and the flats were built later that year. However, by 1970 structural movement had begun to occur in the properties causing cracking to the walls and other damage, causing the properties to become dangerous. The claimant tenants in the flat began proceedings in 1972 in negligence against the council on the basis that the council had failed to properly inspect the building walls properly in order to ensure that the foundations were laid to the correct depth shown in the plans.
Issues
There were two specific issues. (1) Whether the council owed a duty of care to the claimants in respect of the incorrect depth of the foundations laid by the third-party builder. (2) Whether the claim was statute barred.
Decision/Outcome
(1) It was held that the council may be liable in negligence, but in limited circumstances. The relevant legislative provisions with regard to inspection did not place a duty on the council to inspect the walls, but did allow it the power to, if it considered inspection necessary. Therefore, failing to inspect would not render the council liable unless it was considered that it had failed to properly exercise its discretion to inspect and that they had failed to ensure proper compliance with building regulations. If inspections were carried out, the council retained discretion as to the manner of the inspections. If this discretion was not genuinely exercised, the council may be liable in negligence. (2) The claim was not statute barred, the limitation period running from the date at which the dangerous state of the property became apparent.
Updated 19 March 2026
This summary accurately describes the decision in Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] AC 728. However, readers must be aware of a critically important subsequent development: the two-stage test for duty of care established by Lord Wilberforce in Anns was expressly overruled by the House of Lords in Murphy v Brentwood District Council [1991] 1 AC 398. In Murphy, the House of Lords departed from Anns and held that a local authority is not liable in tort for pure economic loss arising from defective buildings, rejecting the broader approach to duty of care that Anns had introduced. The current approach to establishing a duty of care in negligence in English law is instead governed by the three-stage test from Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605 (foreseeability, proximity, and whether it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty), and the incremental approach developed in subsequent case law. The article is therefore useful for understanding the historical development of negligence law, but Anns no longer represents good law on the duty of care or local authority liability for defective premises, and students should treat it primarily as a milestone in the evolution of negligence doctrine rather than as a statement of current law.
