The Court’s Decision The court found that whilst the position was far from clear, it was possible that WTC did believe that the scope of the appointment was much wider but found on balance that this was not the case and that, viewing the documentation on a whole the design of the wall had been produced by the supplier of the gabion baskets and that the scope of the appointment was limited to the additional drain. The court accepted that Mr Roylance had considered himself to be operating through his limited company but that that had not been sufficiently communicated to WTC and that on balance the contract was between WTC and Mr Roylance in his personal capacity. Key Points WTC and Mr Roylance failed to put in place any clear agreement identifying the parties to the contract or what the scope of the appointment was to be. As a result neither party achieved a satisfactory result. Although Mr Roylance was able to convince the court that the scope of his works was limited and therefore avoid liability for the failures in the wall, he did leave himself personally exposed in circumstances where he had set up a limited company to protect against precisely that. The court said that WTC probably believed that Mr Roylance’s appointment was wider than it actually was; their failure to record that resulted in them being unable to recover losses for the failure of the wall. The main lesson arising from this case is the importance of setting out at the outset, the basis on which you are contracting or you may find that what you understood to be the deal is not the case at all.