The test for remoteness of consequential damage in conversion is not reasonable foreseeability but express notice or special knowledge on the part of the converter — knowledge that in the nature of things inconvenience beyond the loss of the goods must have been occasioned to the plaintiff. This places conversion closer to the contractual remoteness test in Hadley v Baxendale than to the tortious test in The Wagon Mound. A bank's duty of care to its customer regarding cheques and telegraphic transfers lies in contract, not tort, and the relationship is too complex and affected by settled commercial expectations to be subverted by negligence. Where a bank's default in handling cheques facilitates a pre-existing fraud, the fraud rather than the bank's default is the operative cause of consequential business losses.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 21 later cases that cite this judgment.
2 of the 21 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.