Talk:Dutton v Bognor Regis UDC

Untitled
The section summarising Denning's judgment seems much too long. Also, there is a dearth of references. I suggest a drastic pruning. Arrivisto (talk) 19:37, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Disagreement
The "Reflections" paragraph had the following statement: "Denning essentially argues (not unlike noblesse oblige) that if an inspector has a statutory right to inspect the property under construction, he thereby acquires a duty of care to inspect carefully. That is to say: a person who has a right has duties attached to that right.  But jurists Dias and Hohfeld have shown that rights and duties are jural correlatives. That is to say: if someone has a right, someone else owes a duty to them.  So here, the inspector has a right (to inspect), and the builder has a duty to let them inspect. The later  Murphy v Brentwood DC case revealed Denning's reasoning in Dutton to be flawed."

... to which the following paragraph was added:

"The statement here that "the inspector has a right (to inspect), and the builder has a duty to let them inspect" does not correctly reflect the right/duty correlative as propounded by Dias. The inspector has right to inspect and is duty bound to apply his professional expertise in carrying out the inspection. It is this 'expertise' of his that a third party would be relying on albeit not directly, but it is reasonable for a person purchasing a house to believe that 'if the District Council has certified a building as safe then it must be safe'. Thus, the inspector as a professional man has the right to inspect and the duty to carry out that inspection with diligence and report to the 'community' any defect he finds in the building or his inability to inspect at all or in full whether owing to obstruction by the builder or to any other reason, and not to certify the building as safe when he knew or ought to know that it was not."

I have deleted the second paragraph as it is quite wrong, according to the House of Lords' decision in Murphy v Brentwood DC. Rights DO NOT engender duties! Arrivisto (talk) 16:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Judgment
A wholesale regurgitation of the judgment seems quite out of place. If readers wish to find the judgment, perhaps they should use the standard sources therefor? Steepleman (t) 11:49, 9 November 2019 (UTC)