Rolls-Royce New Zealand Ltd v Carter Holt Harvey Ltd

Rolls-Royce New Zealand Ltd v Carter Holt Harvey Ltd
Court	Court 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
Decided	23 June 2004
Citation	[2005] 1 NZLR 324
Transcript	Court of Appeal judgment
Court membership
Judges sitting	Gault 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.

Background

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

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.