Armitage v Nurse [1997] EWCA Civ 1279 is the leading decision in English trusts law concerning the validity of exemption clauses.

Under the terms of the variation the property subject to the trusts of the marriage settlement was partitioned between Paula and her mother.

Part of the land together with a sum of £230,000 was transferred to Paula's mother absolutely free and discharged from the trusts of the marriage settlement.

and Mr. Geoffrey Jaques) and approved on Paula's behalf by junior counsel who appeared for her guardian ad litem.

sitting as a judge of the Chancery Division).In the hearing of the Court of Appeal, Bernard Weatherill QC for Armitage submitted that the "irreducible core" duties of a trustee include the following.

Millett LJ held that only a clause which purported to exclude liability for fraud would be considered repugnant and contrary to public policy.

[1] I accept the submission made on behalf of Paula that there is an irreducible core of obligations owed by the trustees to the beneficiaries and enforceable by them which is fundamental to the concept of a trust.

It is, of course, far too late to suggest that the exclusion in a contract of liability for ordinary negligence or want of care is contrary to public policy.

The doctrine of the common law is that: "Gross negligence may be evidence of mala fides, but is not the same thing:" see Goodman v. Harvey (1836) 4 A.

The submission that it is contrary to public policy to exclude the liability of a trustee for gross negligence is not supported by any English or Scottish authority.

accepted that no exemption clause could absolve a trustee from liability for knowingly participating in a fraudulent breach of trust by his co-trustee.

But, subject thereto, he was clearly of opinion that a settlor could, by appropriate words, limit the scope of the trustee's liability in any way he chose.