Chain of causation

Geoffrey Funnell and another v Adams and Remer (a partnership) [2007] EWHC 2166; SJ 5 October

The defendants admitted that they had been negligent in acting for the claimants on entering into a lease of business premises in failing to give them any advice about the effect of a clause making the claimants responsible for new works. Having realised the effect of the negligent advice, the claimants assigned the lease to another business and moved to smaller premises. They claimed damages for the loss sustained in entering the lease, carrying out of the works and extricating themselves from the lease. The act of extricating oneself from a predicament by taking reasonable steps does not, merely by virtue of that, break the chain of causation. Accordingly, if the consequences of that course of action were reasonably foreseeable than they are, in principle, recoverable.