Latest Cases

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £2,785. The claimant suffered soft tissue injuries when his vehicle collided with the defendant's vehicle. The defendant was found liable. 

Local authority – Statutory powers. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant's application for judicial review of the defendant local authority's decision, refusing to provide accommodation and support to the claimant and her mother, a Nigerian overstayer, under the provisions of s 17 of the Children Act 1989. The authority's assessing social worker had been entitled not to be satisfied that the family had been destitute and that they could be accommodated by others. 

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. 

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. 

Prisoner – Rehabilitation. Court of Session: Dismissing a judicial review petition by a prisoner who was subject to an order for lifelong restriction with a punishment part of 7 years' imprisonment and who sought judicial review of a failure by the Scottish Ministers to assess him for rehabilitative course work and their associated policy, the court rejected the petitioner's contentions that by failing to assess him for rehabilitative course work and by adopting policy they had in prioritising assessments for such course work the respondents had failed in their duty to provide him with a reasonable opportunity to rehabilitate himself and demonstrate to the Parole Board at point of his punishment part expiry date that he no longer represented an unacceptable danger to the public and that those failings constituted breaches of their duties at common law and under arts 5 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

European Union – Directives. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling in proceedings between Pillbox 38 (UK) Ltd and the Secretary of State for Health in the United Kingdom, concerning the validity of art 20 of Directive 2014/14/EU in the context of the legality of the 'intention and/or obligation' of the UK government to implement that directive. The Court decided that there was no factor of any kind as to affect the validity, in whole or in part, of art 20 of Directive 2014/14/EU. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post judgment relief. The Chancery Division allowed the claimants' application for a notification injunction, by which they would be notified if the defendants sought to dispose of certain assets. The claimants alleged that they had been caused to enter into business projects that had disadvantaged them and advantaged the defendants, as a result of intimidation by the defendants. The court held that, on the evidence and taking into account that the proposed notification injunction was less intrusive than a freezing order, it was appropriate to conclude that there was a risk of dissipation. 

Iqbal v Procurator Fiscal, Dumfries 

Partnership – Partnership agreement – Construction – Retiral from partnership. Court of Session: In a dispute concerning the sum due to a former partner in respect of his share of the partnership assets after he was compelled to retire from a solicitors' partnership in terms of a clause of the partnership agreement, having reached the age of 65, the court held that the agreement did not incorporate an agreed basis for the pursuer to obtain a share of the net partnership assets in the circumstances in which he ceased to be a partner and accordingly his entitlement fell to be determined by the general law, under which the whole net assets of the partnership should be shared equally between the partners. 

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.