Perrett v Collins [1998] EWCA Civ 884
Court of Appeal, 22 May 1998 — aircraft inspection, passenger safety and the duty of care in negligence.
Facts
Anthony Perrett was injured when a light aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Rochester Airport on 18 January 1993. He was a passenger on a test flight. Simon Collins, the pilot and owner, had assembled the Kitfox aircraft from a kit.
An approved inspector, Les Usherwood, had inspected the aircraft during construction and certified its airworthiness. PFA (ULAIR) Ltd, trading as the Popular Flying Association, issued a certificate of fitness for flight. That certificate allowed test flights with a pilot and passenger for the purpose of obtaining a permit to fly. Without the necessary certification, the aircraft could not lawfully have undertaken the flight.
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Perrett alleged that a replacement gearbox had been fitted without a compatible propeller, leaving the aircraft unable to fly safely. He claimed that the inspector should have identified the mismatch and refused certification. Both the alleged defect and its role in the crash remained disputed.
The county court decided a preliminary issue: whether the inspector and PFA owed Perrett a duty of care. It answered yes. Those defendants appealed. For this preliminary issue, the alleged failures of care were assumed; the court was not deciding whether they had actually occurred.
The question before the court
The defendants accepted that careless inspection could foreseeably cause injury to an aircraft’s occupants. They disputed whether their relationship with Perrett was sufficiently close and whether imposing a duty was fair, just and reasonable. They argued that the owner bore the principal responsibility for safety and relied particularly on Marc Rich & Co AG v Bishop Rock Marine Co Ltd, in which a ship classification society owed no duty to cargo owners.
Decision
The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal. The inspector and PFA owed Perrett a duty of care in carrying out their functions concerning the aircraft’s fitness to fly. The decision allowed the negligence claim to proceed; it was not a final finding that either defendant was negligent or had caused Perrett’s injuries.
Why the duty existed
Responsibility for the safety of an identifiable passenger
The inspector had been involved throughout construction and performed an independent safety function. His role was not merely secondary to the amateur builder’s. Certification was necessary before the test flight could take place, and the defendants knew that it could carry a passenger.
The regulatory arrangements were directed towards air safety. Perrett belonged to the class of people whom proper inspection was intended to protect. He was entitled to assume that the aircraft had satisfied the applicable safety requirements, even though he had no detailed knowledge of the certification arrangements or direct dealings with the inspector.
The owner’s possible liability did not remove the inspectors’ responsibilities. A defect might be one which an amateur builder could not reasonably identify but an expert inspector should detect. Denying a duty could therefore leave an injured passenger without a remedy against the person actually at fault.
Why Marc Rich did not determine the result
Marc Rich concerned lost cargo and the particular contractual and insurance arrangements governing carriage by sea. Recognising a claim against the classification society would have disrupted that allocation of risk and the associated limits on shipowners’ liability.
Those considerations did not govern Perrett’s personal-injury claim. The inspector and PFA also had a different role: their approval was essential to the aircraft being flown. The court did not treat the maritime decision as granting inspecting or certifying organisations a general immunity from negligence claims.
The judges’ approaches
Hobhouse LJ emphasised established principles governing foreseeable personal injury. A defendant whose involvement gave it control over a dangerous situation could owe a duty to people foreseeably exposed to it. Where established principles supplied the answer, a defendant could not escape that duty simply by appealing to a more general impression of fairness.
Swinton Thomas LJ considered proximity and whether a duty was fair, just and reasonable together, rather than treating them as isolated tests. He stressed the safety purpose of the scheme and the defendants’ expertise. Buxton LJ similarly emphasised their close involvement and the importance of protecting passengers from physical injury.
The PFA’s non-profit character did not outweigh those considerations. Buxton LJ also rejected reliance on unsupported predictions that liability would lead to higher insurance costs, withdrawal from inspection work or excessively defensive inspections.
What the case establishes
An organisation and inspector responsible for certifying this amateur-built aircraft owed a duty to a passenger foreseeably endangered by careless inspection. The ruling depended on their involvement, the purpose of certification and the kind of harm claimed. It did not decide the liability of every regulator or inspection body, nor dispense with the need to prove breach and causation.
Judgment: Perrett v Collins [1998] EWCA Civ 884. Reported at [1998] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 255 and [1999] PNLR 77.
