When someone is injured on another person's premises, the occupier will often want to avoid footing the bill. A solicitor advising an occupier — a shop, a landlord, an event organiser — needs to know precisely how far the law lets them limit their exposure, while a solicitor acting for the injured person needs to know when those attempts fail. This is where careful drafting, clear notices, and the statutory rules that police them all meet.
This lesson walks you through the whole picture, in order:
- Mechanisms to Avoid Liability — the three routes an occupier can take: excluding the duty, discharging it by warning, and relying on consent.
- Incorporation and Construction of Exclusion Clauses — the hurdles a clause or notice must clear to be effective in the first place.
- Statutory Controls: UCTA 1977 and CRA 2015 — the limits that void some exclusions outright and subject others to a reasonableness test.
- Third Parties and Warnings — why terms agreed with one person may not bind another, and how a warning can still discharge the duty.
- Exclusion and Volenti Distinguished — the crucial difference between stopping a duty arising and defending a breach that has already happened.
By the end, you'll be able to tell a watertight exclusion from a worthless one.