Watchdog, soothsayer or bloodhound?

Abstract

Increasing evidence exists to suggest that the courts are refusing to widen the negligence liability of surveyors any further. In part, as I explained in the previous issue of this journal, — in ‘Fraud and the surveyor’ — any such stance would mirror the apparently rediscovered value of contractual terms in limiting separate tortious liability. But an equally important factor is the greater discernment by the courts of the different functions which may be performed under the general umbrella of ‘surveying’. While nobody would suggest that the courts have ever believed that all surveyors spent their entire lives in gum‐boots wielding theodolites, cases from Yianni v Edwin Evans & Sons (1982) 1/1 SS 72 onwards have sometimes fuelled the belief that insufficient account has been taken of the different backgrounds of individual surveyors, the expertise demanded of various specialisms and the misperceptions of clients or consumers. The three recent cases discussed in this paper indicate judicial awareness that surveying tasks have legitimate boundaries.

Citation

Ross, M.G. (1987), "Watchdog, soothsayer or bloodhound?", Structural Survey, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 383-385. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb006267