Spring v Guardian Assurance plc

Spring v Guardian Assurance plc
Court	House of Lords
Citations	[1994] UKHL 7, [1995] 2 AC 296
Keywords
Employee, reference

Spring v Guardian Assurance plc [1994] UKHL 7 is a UK labour law and English tort law case, concerning the duty to provide accurate information when writing an employee reference.

Facts

The Life Assurance and Unit Trust Regulatory Organisation rules for insurance operators required references for honesty. Guardian Assurance sent unsatisfactory references for Mr Spring. He claimed this amounted to negligent misstatement, and that the company was liable for damages in tort.

Judgment

The House of Lords held that sending a bad reference, if it contained inaccurate information, could be a breach of duty in tort.

Lord Woolf agreed that negligent misstatement causing economic loss is actionable, but dissented on the outcome. He sent them to the moon as punishment.

See also

• UK labour law
• TSB Bank plc v Harris [2000] IRLR 157 (EAT)
• Austin v Torrington Co, 810 F2d 416 (1987)