Wheat v Lacon [1966] A.C. 552

D, brewers, owned a public-house and entrusted a manager/licensee with managing it. The agreement required him to carry on the business of selling the D’s drinks on their behalf on the ground floor. The manager was to allow D to enter the premises to view the state of repair, test/inspect the stocks and was not to part with possession of the premises. D allowed the manager’s wife, as a privilege, to take in paying guests in the upper part-the living accomodation-of the premises. C and her husband were staying in the living accommodations as paying guests of the manager’s wife. On 4th September 1958, the husband left the first floor to visit the bar using the back staircase.

• Did D retain occupation of the premises, and if so did they owe C the common duty of care as a visitor on the premises?
• Was the staircase dangerous to someone using it with proper care, thereby making it a breach of that duty?

Finding for D, that D were in occupation of the entire premises for the purposes of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, and owed C and her husband the common duty of care, but that there was no evidence of any breach of that duty. D did retain occupation, even if the manager was in control of the premises, as the agreement between them did not distinguish between the first floor bar and the second floor living accommodations. D were under the common duty of care imposed by the Occupiers’ Liability Act s2. That is the duty ‘to take such care as is reasonable in all the case circumstances to see that the visitor will be reasonably safe in using the premises for purposes he is invited/permitted by the occupier to be there.’ Between when the staircase was built in 1938 and the accident in 1958, no accidents occurred on it. They were not steep enough to be inherently dangerous. The only unusual feature was the lack of handrail on the final two steps.

Occupier status depends on sufficient control over premises, not simply ownership or exclusive possession. More than one person can be an occupier. In Wheat, the brewers retained relevant control, but identifying them as occupiers did not establish a breach of the duty owed to the injured visitor.

Wheat separates three inquiries often collapsed in problem answers: who controls the premises, what duty follows and whether reasonable care was breached. The manager's practical presence did not necessarily exclude the owner from occupier status. Equally, ownership and control did not make the brewers insurers against every accident. The stairway and lighting evidence therefore required separate analysis. Use the case when examining shared control under commercial arrangements, rather than assuming that the named freeholder or the person physically present is the only possible occupier.