Wheat v Lacon [1966] AC 552

• Defendant was a company with a pub and the owners, L, lived above the pub. L let a room to Plaintiff. The handrail finished before the end of the stairs and Plaintiff fell down and died.

• Plaintiff’s estate brought a claim against the company (NB the company, not L). 

• HL held that the company was an occupier and owed a common duty of care to Plaintiff, but had not breached the duty. 

Lord Denning

• “Occupier” in the 1957 Act means a person who has a sufficient degree of control so as to owe a common duty of care towards those who lawfully enter the premises. This instance is simply a particular example of the duty of care that a man owes to his neighbour.

• “Where a person has a sufficient degree of control over the premises that he ought to realise that any failure on his part to use care may result in injury to a person coming there”, then he is the occupier, his guest is a visitor and O owes V a duty to use reasonable care.

• Here, the company had merely licensed L to use the premises but had not let it to L so that it retained a sufficient measure of control.

  • However there was nothing to suggest that the short handrail was dangerous, e.g. no previous accidents.

• It is possible to have more than one occupiers, as here.