Bryan V Maloney Summary

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The Bryan v Maloney case involved a home owner filing against the builder of his property, due to professional negligence and lack of duty of care. The plaintiff in the appeal (Mahoney) owned the property for a short period of time before noticing cracks and several defects as the third owner of the house. These defects were caused by the builder’s poor footing constructions that were unable to withstand possible issues such as climate change. This case discusses the duty of care of a builder in regards to the possible defects of a dwelling while in custody of a subsequent home owner. Issues of professional negligence in regards to economic loss results in decreasing financial value of the property, and in this case, economic loss to the property …show more content…

This being important in itself as it is most likely the “most significant investment which the subsequent owner will make during his or her lifetime” in this country.
Furthermore, the court concluded that it is reasonably foreseeable by a licensed builder that insufficient footings would most likely be the reason to cause the loss suffered in this circumstance to the homeowner at that specific time when those deficiencies became noticeable. Therefore, provided that there is no prevailing negligence or other events. the causal proximity between the loss and the builder’s professional negligence would be sufficient to uphold the duty of care.
The court stated that it is known that a builder should be aware of the economic loss caused due to poorly built footings and that the owner of the damaged house would place dependence on the builder to defend them from damages. Whether the proposed damage is caused to the first owner or the current owner is irrelevant given that reliance would be had by whatever owner is in possession at the time the defect manifests and the builder would therefore be liable to that owner providing no other intervening negligence or causative event occurs. This is not taking into consideration the fact that as time goes on, in other circumstances, it may become harder to prove a defect was due to the initial construction and not due to wear and

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