Golf club’s appeal for £500,000 damages over clubhouse fire caused by electric golf trolley dismissed

Judges in the Inner House of the Court of Session upheld a decision of the Lord Ordinary to dismiss the club’s claim that the producers and importers of the trolley were liable under consumer protection law and in negligence.

The court heard that the pursuers, Renfrew Golf Club, sought £558,000 damages from Motocaddy Limited for loss arising from the damage caused to their clubhouse in the early hours of 24 July 2010, when a Motocaddy S1 golf trolley, which had been left overnight in the male locker room, caught fire.

At round 6pm on 23 July 2010, having finished his round of golf club member Darryn Grant parked his trolley near the entrance of the gents’ locker room in the clubhouse, but it was left with the rocker switch - which controlled the power supply - in the ‘on’ position, meaning it was still energised.

At about 1.20am the following morning a serious fire occurred and the “most probable” seat was the trolley, while the most likely cause of a fire within an energised trolley was an electrical fault, the court was told.

The pursuers claimed that the trolley was “defective” and that the defenders were therefore liable for the damage caused in terms of section 2(2)(b) and 2(2)(c) of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

They argued that the Lord Ordinary had applied the wrong test in the relation to the application of the 1987 Act, as the clubhouse was covered by the Act because it was not property of a description ordinarily intended for business or professional use and the fact that there was a material amount of economic activity did not take it outwith the ambit of the legisaltion.

The pursuers also claimed that the defenders were liable in negligence at common law as the trolley had been used throughout its life for its ordinary purpose and it was “reasonably foreseeable” that if it caught fire it could cause damage to property.

It was further argued that the defenders failed in their “duty of care” to carry out a “reasonable examination” of the trolley, which would have included a visual inspection and an electrical inspection to ensure that the trolley incorporated adequate protection against incendive electrical faults.

But the defenders submitted that, in the light of the provisions of section 5(3)(a) and (b) of the 1987 Act, they were not liable for the pursuers’ loss, since the property damaged could not be described as ordinarily intended by the pursuers for “private use”, occupation or consumption, as the clubhouse was used for economic activity.

It was also argued that the pursuers’ common law claim was “irrelevant” because they had failed to aver “sufficient proximity” or “foreseeability” and it would “not be fair, just or reasonable” to impose a duty of care of the kind averred.

However, the judges ruled that the case under the 1987 Act was “irrelevant”.

Delivering the opinion of the court, the Lord President, Lord Carloway(pictured), said: “The short point is that a golf clubhouse is not ordinarily intended for private use, such as that of an individual or perhaps a family or even a small group of friends. It is for the communal use, based upon financial conditions, of a large number of members of the public who have either paid a subscription, tendered a green fee, happened to be a guest or are simply present at a function. For similar reasons, approaching the second leg of the section, a clubhouse is not intended for a person’s ‘own’ private use, but the use of many persons.”

In relation to the common law case, the pursuers also argued that the Lord Ordinary had erred in his application of the “tripartite test” set out in the 1990 case of Caparo Industries v Dickman.

But the judges observed that the “fundamental problem” with the pursuers’ case was that there was “no category” of known liability into which its circumstances might be placed.

Lord Carloway said: “It was accepted that there was no case in which the supplier of a defective product had been found liable for damage caused by it to the property of a person who was neither buyer nor consumer and into which it had simply chanced to have been left. If such liability were to be well founded in law, the world would effectively become the supplier’s neighbour…

“There would then require to be a radical re-adjustment of expectations, and financial arrangements, on the part of both suppliers and property owners. However, such a proposition would need to be derived by analogy from a relevant line of authority. There is none.

“In the absence of analogous authority, it is not possible to conclude that, at common law, there is a proximate relationship between the supplier of a golf trolley and the owner of a clubhouse, in which the trolley happened to be, three years after the supply, and over which the supplier had no control.

“Leaving aside the issue of whether it was foreseeable that an electric trolley would be placed in a locker room or elsewhere inside a clubhouse, especially when switched on, it is certainly foreseeable that it might be in transit at all sorts of public places, including underground hotel car parks, ferries or road side facilities; to each of which it might cause indeterminate damage were it to go on fire. This serves only to illustrate that the pursuers’ case is one which involves a substantial increase in existing known fields of liability.”