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Personal Injury – Contaminated land – Negligence – Breach of statutory duty. Court of Session: In an action in which the pursuers averred that they had lived at addresses at a housing development which, before the site was developed, was contaminated with harmful chemicals, that they inhaled vapours given off by the chemicals, became ill and had suffered loss, the court held that the pursuers' common law case against the first defenders, the developers, was irrelevant; the pursuers had pled a relevant common law case against the second defenders (who they said acted throughout as environmental consultants), and were entitled to a proof of their averments; their case against the third defenders, their housing association landlords, fell to be dismissed; neither the first nor the second defenders were in breach of s 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990; and on the face of it the pursuers' right of action had expired but the case would be put out by order to give the pursuers' advisers the opportunity to consider the sufficiency of their pleadings as regards limitation.
Personal Injury – Contaminated land – Negligence – Breach of statutory duty. Court of Session: In an action in which the pursuers averred that they had lived at addresses at a housing development which, before the site was developed, was contaminated with harmful chemicals, that they inhaled vapours given off by the chemicals, became ill and had suffered loss, the court held that the pursuers' common law case against the first defenders, the developers, was irrelevant; the pursuers had pled a relevant common law case against the second defenders (who they said acted throughout as environmental consultants), and were entitled to a proof of their averments; their case against the third defenders, their housing association landlords, fell to be dismissed; neither the first nor the second defenders were in breach of s 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990; and on the face of it the pursuers' right of action had expired but the case would be put out by order to give the pursuers' advisers the opportunity to consider the sufficiency of their pleadings as regards limitation.
Chair of the Bar reports back
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs
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