Hill (by her litigation friend, Rudyard Thorpe) v Fellowes (a firm [2011] EWHC 61 (QB), [2011] All ER (D) 157 (Jan)
A solicitor was generally only required to make inquiries as to a person’s capacity to contract if there were circumstances such as to raise doubt in the mind of a reasonably competent practitioner. The relevant test where professional negligence was alleged, however, was not whether someone should have been more careful.
The standard of care was not that of a particularly meticulous and conscientious practitioner. The test was what a reasonably competent practitioner would do having regard to the standards normally adopted in his profession. There was plainly no duty upon solicitors in general to obtain medical evidence on every occasion upon which they were instructed by an elderly client just in case they lacked capacity. Such a requirement would be insulting and unnecessary.
