Latest Cases

Damages – Personal injury. The Queen's Bench Division held that, taking into account the claimant's psychological state and loss of capacity, he was entitled to an award of damages for pain suffering and loss of amenity in the sum of £192,500 for the damage cause by the admitted negligence of a hospital. 

Road Traffic – Disqualification from driving. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, provided guidance as to the effect of the introduction into the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 of sections 35A and 35B, provisions relating to disqualification of driving. In particular, it set out a checklist indicating an appropriate way of working to formal sentencing decisions in respect of disqualification. 

European Union – Environment. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling confirming the validity of art 15(3) of Commission Decision 2011/278/EU determining transitional Union-wide rules for harmonised free allocation of emission allowances pursuant to art 10a of Council Directive (EC) 2003/87 in so far as that provision precluded emissions from electricity generators from being taken into account in the determination of the maximum annual amount of allowances. However, the Court decided that art 4 of, and Annex II to, Commission Decision 2013/448/EU concerning national implementation measures for the transitional free allocation of greenhouse gas emission allowances in accordance with art 11(3) of Directive 2003/87 were invalid. 

Medical practitioner – Disciplinary proceedings. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the claimant British Medical Association's application for judicial review, held that para 6(b) of the Schedule to the General Medical Council (Legal Assessor and Legally Qualified Persons) Rules Order of Council 2015, SI 2015/1958, which provided that a legally qualified tribunal chair did not need to advise other panel members on any question of law in the presence of the parties after deliberations had begun, was neither contrary to the requirements of art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights or common law fairness, nor otherwise unlawful. 

Trade dispute – Dispute connected with terms and conditions of employment. The Queen's Bench Division held that an interim injunction would be granted using the usual test of the American Cyanamid principles that drivers be told that the court had declared that, pending any industrial action and any agreement reached thereafter, they should operate trains on a 12-car DOO(P) basis on those services which had formerly had a 10-car DOO(P) service to Gatwick, on the Gatwick Express. 

Limitation of actions – Prescription – Triennium. Court of Session: In an action, raised in July 2015, in which the pursuer sought reparation for sexual and physical abuse allegedly suffered in the early 1960s whilst at a boarding school run by the defenders, the court did not accept that it had been established on a balance of probabilities that the pursuer attended the school on or after 26 September 1964, which meant that the whole of his claim had been extinguished by the long negative prescription; even if that was wrong his action was now time-barred because the triennium was long expired; and even if some or all of his claim had not been extinguished by the long negative prescription the court would have refused to exercise its discretionary power in favour of allowing the action to proceed. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division allowed an appeal from a decision of a recorder, refusing to award a fixed-advocacy fee on the basis that the case had settled. It had not strained the language of CPR 45.29C to conclude that the case was one where the claim had been 'disposed of at trial', albeit by way of settlement rather than judgment. 

Insurance – Transfer of long-term insurance business. The Companies Court granted an order, among other things, sanctioning an insurance business transfer scheme to transfer the applicant company, The Copenhagen Reinsurance Company (U.K) Ltd's entire insurance business to another company in the Enstar group. 

Iqbal v Procurator Fiscal, Dumfries 

Judicial review – Foster carer – Deregistration. Court of Session: Dismissing a judicial review petition by a petitioner who was jointly registered with her husband as a foster carer by the respondent local authority, and who sought reduction of the respondents' decisions to deregister her and her husband following the respondents' own investigation of serious allegations about the husband's conduct made by a child who had been in the petitioner and her husband's care (the police having investigated but taken no further action), the court rejected the petitioner's contentions that reduction of the respondents' decisions should be granted because they had failed to adequately take into account her blameless position and had failed to discuss with her the possibility of a variation of the joint registration.