Setting aside

Brennan v Bolt Burdon (a firm) and others QBD TLR 7 November

The local authority was the claimant’s landlord which the claimant considered to be liable to her for the effects of providing a flat with a noxiously malfunctioning gas boiler. The parties appear to have agreed that no claim form having been served in time, the claim should be dropped in return for no consequence as to costs. However, the legal position which had caused that compromise was altered by the reversal on appeal of Anderton v Clwyd County Council (No 2) [2002] 1 WLR 3174 and the offer of settlement was withdrawn by the claimant’s new solicitors. The court should be very slow to set aside and declare compromise agreements void on the ground of alleged common mistakes of fact or law and before doing so must be satisfied that the mistake was both common and fundamental to the making of the compromise agreement. In the present case, the common mistaken assumption as to the law was the fundamental basis for and precondition of the compromise agreement, and indeed its only springboard. Accordingly, the contract for a settlement was set aside on the ground that it had been based on a mutual mistake of the law.