The House of Lords has refused permission for a mail-order clothing company to challenge a Court of Appeal ruling that it could not claim damages from a firm of architects for damage to textiles caused by gas heating in two old cotton mills at Shaw, Oldham.
JD Williams & Co originally won damages of £365,325 in the High Court after textiles it stored in the mills suffered discoloration, known as “phenolic yellowing”, due to the gas heating.
The company succeeded in a claim that architect Michael Hyde & Co, which provided architectural and structural engineering services for the conversion and refurbishment of the derelict mills, should have been aware of the risks that such a heating system posed and taken account of that factor in its design.
However, the architect succeeded in reversing that outcome in the Court of Appeal, which held that JD Williams failed on the causation issue.
The court found that the company had not established what further inquiries Michael Hyde could have made about the risk of discoloration, or what the result of any such inquiries would have been. In the absence of such evidence, it ruled, the conclusions of the High Court judge had been purely speculative and could not be upheld.
Now, after considering the matter in private, Lords Nicholls, Hoffman and Scott have refused leave for JD Williams to appeal against that ruling. No reasons were given for their decision.
PLS News 5/3/01
