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. 

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. 

Value added tax – Exemptions. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the appellant taxpayers' appeal, held that there was no hard and fast rule or presumption about inter-player participation in a 'game' for the purposes of the Gaming Act 1968, and the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) had made no error of law in having concluded that 'Spot the Ball' was a 'game of chance'. 

Pension scheme – Changes to administration of scheme. Court of Session: In a special case in which a company and the trustees of the company pension scheme, who had been unable to discover sufficient evidence to demonstrate that in 1992 decisions in respect of changes to escalation of benefits and equalisation of pension date were made and recorded in accordance with the requirements of a clause making provision for amendment of the rules of the scheme, invited the court to decide whether it could be inferred that in 1992 the trustees exercised powers under another clause to apply special terms, both in respect of escalation and equalisation, that the company consented thereto and that intimation thereof was made to members in accordance with that clause, the court answered the question in relation to escalation in the affirmative (with a reservation) and the question in relation to equalisation in the negative (with an exception). 

Iqbal v Procurator Fiscal, Dumfries 

Practice – Hearing. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed an appeal against an order that the application by the claimant for a detailed assessment of the bills of the defendant, its former solicitors, pursuant to s 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974, should be held in private. It held that the authorities clearly demonstrated that there was a concept of waiver for limited purposes and that was clearly what had happened in the present case. 

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. 

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. 

Social security – Income support. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, determined two appeals regarding the effect of the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013. It held that, by that Act, Parliament had successfully retrospectively validated sanctions imposed on jobseeker's allowance claimants who had failed to participate in certain back to work schemes. In the cases of those claimants who had already appealed their sanctions, the Act had been incompatible with their rights under art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.