Maurice v Leriche
Citation: All ER (D) 264 Privy Council
Nature of case:
This appeal from St. Lucia concerned concurrent judgments on fact of two lower courts and, especially, whether the judge was entitled to award interest from the date of judgment. The Privy Council set out the basic rule that a trial judge had general discretion to award interest, even where it was not pleaded, provided that did not breach procedural requirements. Building contracts, as in this case, were seen as a ‘classic’ case for the presumption that interest should be addressed and ordinarily awarded unless there was some adequate reason to the contrary.
