Nocton v Lord Ashburton [1914] AC 932 is a leading English tort law

English tort law

English tort law concerns civil wrongs, as distinguished from criminal wrongs, in the law of England and Wales. Some wrongs are the concern of the state, and so the police can enforce the law on the wrongdoers in court – in a criminal case...

 case concerning professional negligence

Professional negligence

In the English law of tort, professional negligence is a subset of the general rules on negligence to cover the situation in which the defendant has represented him or herself as having more than average skills and abilities. The usual rules rely on establishing that a duty of care is owed by the...

 and the conditions under which a person will be taken to have assumed responsibility for the welfare of another.

Facts

Lord Ashburton was buying a property for £60,000 on Church Street, Kensington

Kensington

Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. His solicitor was Mr Nocton. Mr Nocton advised Lord Ashburton to release part of the mortgage security. This was a bad idea, because as Mr Nocton in fact knew, this meant that the security would become insufficient. Lord Ashburton alleged the advice was not given in good faith, but rather in Mr Nocton's self interest.

Judgment

Viscount Haldane LC for the House of Lords held that despite Derry v Peek (which had disallowed any claim for misstatements apart from in the tort of deceit) Mr Nocton was liable for his bad advice given the fiduciary relationship between the solicitor and client.