In 1996, Mr Justice Chadwick gave directions which led to almost 100 actions brought by the Bristol & West Building Society against solicitor defendants being listed together for trial.

In February 1977, the trial of 27 cases of the managed list began.

During the course of the managed trial the parties came to terms in a further 19 cases.

On 4 July 1997, judgement was given in the remaining eight cases (Bristol & West Building Society v Fancy & Jackson, unreported).The managed trialAlthough there are a number of side issues which are perhaps peculiar to each claim pursued by the building society in the managed trial, there were three key issues central to each of the eight claims considered:-- did the solicitor act in breach of duty as alleged by the lender?-- did the alleged breach of duty cause loss to the lender?-- how was the lender's loss, if any, to be quantified?Breach of dutyChadwick J provided comment upon numerous allegations of breach of duty which we do not propose to recite here.

Suffice it to say that from the profession's point of view it was reassuring to see Chadwick J follow the recent Court of Appeal decision in National Home Loans v Giffen Couch & Archer [1996] 31 December The Times) when he stated: 'In circumstances where the lender's instructions impose specific duties .

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It seems to me to be inappropriate to have resort, at least initially, to some more general duty based on the appreciation of a reasonably competent solicitor as to materiality.'This is very much Chadwick J saying that lenders should not be able to have their cake and eat it.

Lenders who choose the path of litigation should be under no doubt that if they continue to impose specific contractual duties on solicitors, they should not expect the Court to go to any great lengths to impose a wider tortious duty.CausationEven where the lender was successful in establishing breach of duty, it was only entitled to recover more than nominal damages in circumstances where it could establish that it would not have suffered a loss but for that breach.

Indeed, in those cases where nominal damages only were awarded, Chadwick J ordered that the lender pay the solicitors' defence costs -- reflecting that the true winners here were solicitors.Despite hearing evidence from a number of the Bristol & West's advances officers, in three of the five cases where causation was a live issue, Chadwick J was unable to find any commercial reason why those particular loans would not have proceeded even if the true position had been reported to the lender.To take just one example, in the case of Clereys (one of the eight cases in which judgement was given), Chadwick J found that the solicitor failed, in breach of duty, to inform the lender that the existing first mortgagee would redeem its c harge on completion over the property and take a second charge over the same property.

Chadwick J, however, was persuaded that knowledge of the borrower's intention to create a second charge would not have influenced the lender's decision to lend, on the basis that it raised no objection on receiving notice of the second charge shortly after completion.

Indeed, having acted as solicitors for Clereys, we are aware that the lender, far from objecting, did in fact return the notice of the second charge duly receipted.QuantumIn South Australia Asset Management Corporation [SAAMCO] v York Montague Limited [1996] 3 All ER 365, the House of Lords held that in claims brought against valuers, a lender is only entitled to recover, by way of damages, the difference between a correct valuation of the property and the negligent valuation, ie the amount directly attributable to the valuation having been wrong.

There had been much debate as to whether SAAMCO principles applied to solicitor defendants.

Chadwick J confirmed our earlier opinion (see [1996] Gazette 26 June, 19) that they do.

The implications of applying Lord Hoffman's reasoning in SAAMCO to solicitors' negligence cases is far reaching, as can be seen from two of the cases in which the SAAMCO principles were applied.-- In Fancy & Jackson, (the lead case) a solicitor who failed to obtain a clear land registry search until after completion was not held to be responsible for the lender's losses.

The lender's loss was not caused by the absence of an official search, but by the borrower defaulting in making repayments due under the mortgage and by a fall in property prices.-- In Colin Bishop (another of the eight cases) Chadwick J held that where a solicitor failed to report a 'back-to-back' sale, the solicitor should only be responsible for the loss suffered by the lender as a result of it taking a security which was less valuable than it thought.

Thus, if the property was not in fact over-valued (vis-a-vis the reported purchase price), then there was no loss for which the solicitor was responsible.ConclusionWhat is refreshing about the judgement, and indeed something which solicitor defendants have been repeating to us time and time again, is that lenders were falling over themselves to make advances.

In short, even if certain factors had been reported to lenders, such factors would not in reality have affected the decision to lend.

Stating that proposition and proving it are, of course, two very different things.

The principle however was not lost on Chadwick J: 'I take account of the evidence of the lending officers [of the Bristol & West] to whom the request would have been made.

They were unanimous in their view that no loan would have been sanctioned.

That was not a position which appeared to me to be founded on any commercial premise or logic.'