Public Authorities, Omissions and the Limits of Liability: Sintes v London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Public Authorities, Omissions and the Limits of Liability: Sintes v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2026] EWCA Civ 752

Mark Erridge analyses the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Sintes v London Borough of Tower Hamlets and considers its significance for personal injury practitioners pursuing claims against public authorities.

The Court of Appeal’s decision in Sintes v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2026] EWCA Civ 752 is ostensibly a straightforward trip-and-fall case arising from an accident at Whitechapel Market. In reality, it is a significant authority on the modern law of negligence and nuisance as applied to public authorities. It also provides a powerful illustration of the courts’ increasingly restrictive approach to liability for omissions.

The Claim in Nuisance and Negligence

The claimant, who was 36 weeks’ pregnant, tripped over metal poles protruding from a trolley onto the pavement and suffered a serious ankle fracture. The poles belonged to an unidentified market trader. Tower Hamlets was not the highway authority responsible for the footway, but held a regulatory role in licensing market traders under Part III of the London Local Authorities Act 1990 and imposing detailed licence conditions governing trading, safety and waste management.

The claimant argued that Tower Hamlets exercised extensive control over the market through licence conditions, enforcement powers and operational inspection procedures. Having assumed responsibility for regulating the market, it was said to owe a duty either to prevent such hazards from being created or to identify and remove them once they appeared.

At first instance, the Deputy District Judge accepted that analysis. He concluded that Tower Hamlets had assumed responsibility for the safe operation of the market and was liable both in negligence and nuisance because it had failed to detect and remove the obstruction.

The Court of Appeal unanimously overturned the DDJ’s decision.

A Straightforward Application of Tindall

Stuart-Smith LJ regarded the case as falling squarely within the general rule that there is no common law duty to protect another person from harm caused by a third party. The immediate cause of the accident was the conduct of an unidentified market trader. The complaint was not that the council had created the danger, but that it had failed to do more to prevent the trader’s wrongdoing.

The judgment draws heavily upon Tindall v Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police [2024] UKSC 33, Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2015] AC 1732 and N v Poole BC [2020] AC 780 in applying the settled principles that public authorities are generally subject to the same principles as private individuals and that liability ordinarily arises only where the defendant has made matters worse rather than merely failed to confer a benefit.

Importantly, the Court focused on the “baseline” identified in Tindall: what would have happened if the authority had done nothing at all? Applying that test, the answer was clear: the trader could still have left the poles where they were and the accident could still have occurred. Tower Hamlets’ conduct had not created the danger. At most, it had failed to prevent a danger created by somebody else.

Assumption of Responsibility: A Narrow Door Remains Narrow

The claimant sought to invoke one of the recognised exceptions to the omissions principle, namely assumption of responsibility.

That argument faced considerable difficulties. There had been no interaction between the claimant and the council. No assurance had been given. The claimant had not relied on any representation by the authority. The relationship was wholly unlike the relationships seen in cases such as Phelps or Barrett, where public authorities had effectively stepped into parental or professional roles.

The Court concluded that there was no meaningful sense in which Tower Hamlets had assumed responsibility for the claimant’s safety as she walked along the highway. The case therefore fell on the same side of the line as Poole and Tindall.

Notably, the Court found that extensive operational procedures, supervision systems and enforcement powers were insufficient to establish assumption of responsibility. That conclusion will be welcomed by public authorities, and is likely to make future claimant arguments in this sphere considerably harder.

Control Is Not Enough

The claimant also relied upon the council’s degree of control over market traders.

Again, the Court rejected the submission. Possessing powers to revoke licences, prosecute breaches or enforce conditions was not comparable to the level of control seen in Dorset Yacht, where officers exercised direct supervision over borstal trainees. Tower Hamlets regulated traders; it did not control them in the relevant legal sense.

This aspect of the judgment may have wider significance beyond market licensing. Many public authorities possess extensive inspection, enforcement and regulatory powers. Sintes suggests that such powers will not, without more, amount to the “special level of control” required to bring a claim within one of the recognised exceptions to the rule against liability for omissions.

The Failure of the Nuisance Claim

The claimant had alternatively argued that Tower Hamlets had either permitted the nuisance or adopted and continued it. The Court of Appeal rejected both propositions.

Stuart-Smith LJ held that the two essential prerequisites of adoption or continuation of nuisance were missing: knowledge of the nuisance and a reasonable opportunity to abate it. No one knew how long the poles had been present. Indeed, the Court separately overturned the trial judge’s finding that the obstruction had existed since 2.45 pm, holding that it was unsupported by the evidence.

Without evidence establishing how long the poles had remained in position, it was impossible to demonstrate either that the council ought to have known about them or that it had sufficient opportunity to remove them. The nuisance claim therefore failed.

Practical Implications

Sintes continues a clear judicial trend: the Supreme Court’s decisions in Poole and Tindall are now being robustly applied in personal injury litigation. Regulatory involvement, inspection schemes, published procedures and enforcement powers are unlikely, without more, to generate a private law duty of care.

Sintes stands as a clear warning that claims against public authorities cannot succeed merely because an authority possessed powers that might have prevented an accident. The question remains the one posed by Tindall: did the authority create or materially worsen the danger, or did it merely fail to prevent someone else’s wrongdoing? In Sintes, the Court of Appeal held that the answer was unequivocally the latter.

Finally, the deficiencies of County Court listing practices were notably exposed by this case. Yip LJ and Bean LJ both commented upon the need for careful scrutiny by Designated Civil Judges when making listing decisions for such trials: this was a multi-track case involving some legal complexity which was plainly appropriate for trial by a Circuit Judge. This will resonate with many legal practitioners who tolerate the exigencies of County Court listing decisions, including the last-minute re-allocation of judges, limited or no time for judicial pre-reading, and the compression of trial timetables into unrealistic slots as a result of block lists and urgent applications.

Article by Mark Erridge