Cutler v Wandsworth Stadium [1949] AC 398

• Plaintiff was a bookmaker who claimed that Defendant had breached their statutory duty of giving him a convenient place from which to trade and claimed lost earnings for breach of statutory duty.

• HL denied that the duty was aimed to give a private right of action. 

Lord Simonds

• Whether a breach of statutory duty gives rise to a private action depends on “consideration of the whole Act and the circumstances, including the pre-existing law”.

• The other lords concur with him that “if a statutory duty is prescribed but no remedy by way of penalty or otherwise for its breach is imposed, it can be assumed that a right of civil action accrues to the person who is damnified by the breach.”

  • Otherwise the act would be impotent.

• Also the inadequacy of punishment might suggest an alternative right of private action is established, as in Groves. However this is not the case here.

RE:ATED CASES

• Groves v Wimborne