Court of Appeal rules on leaky school lawsuit

Macleans College in Bucklands Beach, Auckland, has also suffed from leaking buildings. Photo / Doug Sherring

Part of the Ministry of Education's lawsuit against Carter Holt Harvey has been thrown out by the Court of Appeal.

The bulk of the litigation, however, remains on foot against the building products company, which is ultimately owned by New Zealand's richest man Graeme Hart.

The case involves buildings clad in Carter Holt Harvey's Shadowclad at a large number of schools throughout New Zealand.

The Ministry has alleged that weathertightness issues at the schools were caused by faulty cladding products.

The case advances five different sets of allegations, the first being that Carter Holt was negligent in designing, manufacturing, importing and supplying the so-called defective cladding.

It is also claimed Carter Holt negligently failed to warn the Ministry about the cladding.

It is also alleged Carter Holt owed a duty of care to not make "false, misleading or negligent misstatements" about the cladding.

The Ministry also alleges Carter Holt breached guarantees in the Consumer Guarantees Act and breached the Fair Trading Act.

Carter Holt applied to the High Court to have all but the Fair Trading Act claim thrown out but was turned down last year.

It then challenged that decision in the Court of Appeal and was partly successful this afternoon.

Justices Tony Randerson, Lynton Stevens and Mark Cooper agreed to strike out the negligent misstatement claim from the Ministry's case.

"We are not satisfied that the claim as pleaded could succeed," they said.

The judges dismissed the appeal regarding the other parts of the case and upheld the High Court's decision that the case was not brought out of time.

Read the court documents here: