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Rolls-Royce New Zealand Ltd v Carter Holt Harvey Ltd

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Rolls-Royce New Zealand Ltd v Carter Holt Harvey Ltd
CourtCourt of Appeal of New Zealand
Full case name ROLLS-ROYCE NEW ZEALAND LIMITED Appellant v CARTER HOLT HARVEY LIMITED Respondent And Strike-Out Respondent AND GENESIS POWER LIMITED Strike-Out Applicant
Decided23 June 2004
Citation[2005] 1 NZLR 324
TranscriptCourt of Appeal judgment
Court membership
Judges sittingGault P, Anderson J, Glazebrook J
Keywords
negligence

Rolls-Royce New Zealand Ltd v Carter Holt Harvey Ltd [2005] 1 NZLR 324 is decision of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand regarding tort claims in situations where a claim can be in both tort and contract.[1]

Background

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Carter Holt entered into a contract with ECNZ (now Genesis Energy) for them to construct a cogeneration plant at their Kinleith paper mill that would be fueled by waste byproduct from the mill, with the contract having a non liability clause.

ECNZ in turn subcontracted the work to Rolls-Royce.

Problems later were experienced with the generators that were installed, and CHH sued ECNZ for breach of contract. As there was no contract between CHH and Rolls-Royce, they were sued for negligence in tort.

Rolls-Royce applied for the tort claim against them to be struck out on the basis that ECNZ could not have a claim in both contract and tort.

Held

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The court ruled where parties are involved in complex commercial relationships, there could only be duties owed in contract, and not in tort. Accordingly, the court granted Rolls-Royces application to strike out part of the claim.

However, the court did leave open to a claim in tort still being arguable for misrepresentation claims in tort, as per in Hedley Byrne.

References

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  1. ^ McLay, Geoff (2010). Butterworths Student Companion Torts (6th ed.). LexisNexis. ISBN 9781877511400.