Contractor Connaught Mason has been ordered to pay more than £700,000 damages in respect of a flood at a London property that occurred over the 2000/2001 New Year period.
Following the flood, a number of compensation claims were made against Connaught by the occupiers of the affected property at 27-31 Charing Cross Road, London WC2. Resolving the last of these claims at London’s High Court, Judge Toulmin QC has awarded £719,534 to recruitment firm Phee Farrer Jones Ltd.
The award compensates Phee Farrer Jones for having to move out of its offices on the third, sixth, seventh and ninth floors of Alhambra House to relocate in part of 10 Alfred Place, London WC1, while repair work was being carried out.
Connaught Mason was contracted to undertake refurbishment works to Alhambra House in August 2000, but has conceded that either it, or its subcontractor, was liable for the damage caused by the flood.
Repairs were carried out between June and September 2001, but Phee Farrer Jones opted to take a lease of Alfred Place from 12 April in order to allow the premises to be fitted out prior to the company moving in on 11 June. It also chose to relocate all of its employees so that the business could continue to work from one building, even though the seventh and ninth floors of Alhambra House were unaffected by the repairs.
The recruitment firm remained at Alfred Place after the work had been completed, and continued to pay rent for both properties until the Alhambra House lease ended in June 2002.
Disputing Phee Farrer Jones’s claim for damages, Connaught Mason argued that the company’s reason for moving was to fulfil ambitious expansion plans, contending that the decision had been taken prior to the flood. The contractor also maintained that relocating the whole business was “unnecessarily extravagant” because Phee Farrer Jones was required to vacate only two floors of Alhambra House.
However, Judge Toulmin said: “I find no difficulty in accepting that, in a cut-throat business like recruitment, it was a reasonable decision for Phee Farrer Jones that it should want both to have the staff as far as possible in one building and to have the staff desks and interview rooms in the same building. I therefore reject the defendant’s contention that the move to Alfred Place was extravagant and disproportionate.”
Phee Farrer Jones Ltd v Connaught Mason Ltd Technology and Construction Court (Judge Toulmin QC) 19 March 2003.
David Blunt QC and Peter Hamilton (instructed by Vizards Wyeth) appeared for the claimant; Howard Palmer QC and Vincent Moran (instructed by Beachcroft Wansbroughs, of Leeds) appeared for the defendant.
References: PLS News 30/4/03
