Per incuriam, literally translated as "through lack of care" is a device within the common law system of judicial precedent.
A finding of per incuriam means that a previous court judgment has failed to pay attention to relevant statutory provision or precedents.
The Court of Appeal in Morelle Ltd v Wakeling [1955] 2 QB 379 stated that as a general rule, the only cases in which decisions should be held to have been given per incuriam are those of decisions given in ignorance or forgetfulness of some inconsistent statutory provision or of some authority binding on the court concerned and so in such cases some part of the decision or some step in reasoning on which it is based is found, on that account, to be demonstrably wrong.
Some academic critics have suggested that Re Polemis[1] was decided per incuriam as it did not rely upon the earlier decision in Hadley v Baxendale 1854.
Similarly, others[2] have suggested that Foakes v Beer[3] was decided per incuriam as it failed to note the recent House of Lords decision in Hughes v Metropolitan Railway Co 1877.