Crane Base Not a Product, Rules Court

You might think that a product is like an elephant – hard to define, but you know one when you see one. However, the meanings of words in law are often important, as a case which dealt with the meaning of the word ‘product’ makes clear.

It involved a dispute over the construction of a crane base at a building site. Some time after the crane had been erected, it collapsed due to the failure of the base, which, the court heard, occurred because the base had been incorrectly designed. The crane operator was severely injured. A claim was brought against the construction company, Adana Construction Limited.

Adana’s public liability insurer considered that its policy did not cover the company’s liability because of an exclusion clause which excluded any claim arising from any ‘product or goods...constructed...(or) supplied...by the insured’. The insurer claimed that the base of the crane was a product and therefore its liability for the claim was nullified by the exclusion.

In court, the judge did not agree that the crane base could be considered to be a product. Judge Mackie QC said, “A lump of concrete created in this way is not a product except in the most literal sense...This is not one of the Adana range of products, you cannot buy it, it is created at the customer’s premises not at a factory. When arranging a construction contract a customer would see this activity as part of the work on site, not as a product like a boiler to be ordered and sent to the scene.

“This lump of concrete has no ‘component parts’, items integral to it like the gearbox of a car. The dowels were perhaps component parts of the piles once placed and secured within them. They were not part of a wider product. As products on their own they were not Adana’s.”

The insurer’s argument that the exclusion applied therefore failed.