england-and-wales tort
How can Capital &amp; Counties v Hampshire CC [1997] be persuasively distinguished from Kent v Griffiths [2001]?
<p>I don't think they can be distinguished for two reasons. 1. Like the London Ambulance Service in <em>Kent v Griffiths</em> [2001] QB 36, the firefighters in <em>Capital &amp; Counties v Hampshire CC</em> [1997] QB 1004 answered &quot;the call for help&quot; (Bagshaw, p 194). 2. The firefighters  in <em>Kent</em> impliedly or implicitly provided 'wrong information' by pretending to be able to extinguish fires, and by failing to summon backup or other emergency services to effectively extinguish the fire.</p>
<p>I found merely 2 attempts to distinguish them, quoted below. Who is correct? Me or these Oxbridge law professors?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The better view of <em>Kent v Griffiths</em> (2001) is that Lord
Woolf MR was <em>not</em> saying in that case that a bare undertaking to assist someone else can
give rise to a duty of care. Lord Woolf was a liberal judge who was instinctively in favour
of finding that the emergency services owe people in need a duty to save them from harm,
unless some good reason can be shown why such a duty should not be recognised. For
Lord Woolf, the acceptance of the call in <em>Kent v Griffiths</em> was not a reason for finding that
there existed a duty of care in that case; the acceptance of the call meant there was no
reason why a duty of care should <em>not</em> be found in that case:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An important feature of this case is that there is no question of an ambulance not being available
or of a conflict in priorities . . . [O]nce there are available, both in the form of an ambulance and
in the form of manpower, the resources to provide an ambulance on which there are no alternative
demands, the ambulance service would be acting perversely . . . if it did not make those resources
available. Having decided to provide an ambulance an explanation is required to justify a failure
to attend within reasonable time.<sup>74</sup></p>
</blockquote>
<p><sup>74</sup>[2001] QB 36, at [47].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bagshaw, <em>Tort Law</em> 2018 6e, p 206.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>       The duty of care that the ambulance service owed the claimant in <em>Kent v Griffiths</em>
(2001)86 can be explained on this basis. As Lord Woolf MR observed in that case: ‘If
wrong information had not been given about the arrival of the ambulance, other means of
transport could have been used.’87 By telling the claimant’s doctor and husband that an
ambulance was on its way and would be arriving imminently, the ambulance service put
them off finding some other way to get the claimant to hospital (for example, in a taxi).88</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>86 See above, § 6.2.<br />
87 [2001] QB 36, at [49].<br />
88 [2001] QB 36, at [17]: ‘But for the acceptance of the 999 call the [claimant] would have been driven to
the hospital and would have arrived prior to her “arrest”.’ See also <em>Michael</em>, at [138], which explains the
duty of care in <em>Kent v Griffiths</em> as being based on the ‘misleading assurances that an ambulance would be
arriving shortly.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Op. cit. p 213.</p>

<h2>They can be distinguished in several ways</h2>
<ul>
<li><p>The fire brigade (and the police) does not have a common law duty to any specific member of the public, the ambulance service does because it is part of the health service where such a duty does exist.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The ambulance service has a duty to attend as soon as practicable and that a delay in dispatch or getting lost in transit can be negligence. This is not the case for the fire brigade who can refuse the call or go via Land's End without giving grounds for a negligence suit.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The fire brigade does have a duty once engaged in fighting a fire to not do so in a negligent way that causes further harm. the ambulance service has an equivalent duty in rendering medical aid.</p>
</li>
</ul>
