Ashington Piggeries Ltd v Christopher Hill Ltd information

Ashington Piggeries Ltd v Christopher Hill Ltd.
Court	House of Lords
Full case name	Ashington Piggeries Ltd v Christopher Hill Ltd.
Court membership
Judges sitting	Charles Hodson, Baron Hodson; Kenneth Diplock, Baron Diplock; Christopher Guest, Baron Guest; Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne; Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce.
Case opinions
With respect to contracts to supply goods, while quality issues or contamination do not made a good different in definition, there is a reasonable expectation of quality where goods suppliers know the purpose of a good and have reason to know the risks. (Manningham-Buller dissenting.)
Keywords
contract law

Ashington Piggeries Ltd v Christopher Hill Ltd. (1972; AC 441) is a UK commercial law case concerning legal liability for the damages resulting from the loss of a large number of mink given toxic feed. The heart of the case revolved around the definition of ingredients in the contract (by section 13 of the Sale of Goods Act of 1893) and the expectations of the quality of those ingredients (under 14(1) and 14(2)).

In 1960, Ashington Piggeries Ltd. supplied the recipe which Christopher Hill Ltd. fulfilled, using in part ingredients it acquired from a Norwegian company, Sildemelutvalget (who had been replaced by Norsildmel by the time of trial). Many of the animals who consumed the food died from liver disease resulting from improper processing of the herring meal in the feed. Ashington Piggeries was sued by Christopher Hill for refusing to pay for the feed and countersued that Christopher Hill failed to fulfill its contractual obligations by providing poor quality ingredients that did not meet the contract's requirements. Christopher Hill in turn sued Norsildmel for failing to fulfill its contractual obligations for the same reason.

The House of Lords heard the case in February 1971, holding that while quality issues or contamination did not make an ingredient different in definition, there was a reasonable expectation of quality where ingredient suppliers knew the purpose of the ingredient and had reason to know the risks.