The Party Bus Company Ltd v New Zealand Transport Agency - [2017] 3 NZLR 185

Tort — Negligence — Duty of care — Bus inspections leading to cancellation of contract — Ministry of Transport contracted bus company to provide transport — Parties agreed for NZTA to share safety information — Buses failed inspections — Clause allowed Ministry to terminate — Ministry contemplated leniency if failures fixed — Transport Agency later provided false information that buses remained non-operational — Ministry cancelled contract — No explicit contractual duty to take care in information sharing — Whether duty of care owed — Whether proximate relationship between bus company and NZTA — Whether NZTA should have reasonably foreseen injury to bus company or that Ministry would rely on information — Public policy implications of recognising duty — Whether NZTA statutory role to protect public safety effected — Effect on contract law if duty of care recognised.

Tort — Negligence — Loss — Causation — Whether NZTA’s negligence was material and real cause of loss or whether initial breach of bus company material and substantive cause.

Strike out application principles — Whether causation matter required trial — Whether strike out permitted — Whether causation of loss a factual enquiry or legal matter — Whether matter of causation a matter for investigation — Whether court could order strike out on factual enquiry — Whether no reasonably arguable cause of action — High Court Rules, r 15.1(1)(a).