Latest Cases

Contempt of court – Committal. The Chancery Division ruled that the defendant company (a nightclub) and its sole director and shareholder at the material times were guilty of contempt of court by reason of the breaches of an injunction restraining them from infringing the claimant's copyright by using, without a licence, recordings in the claimant's repertoire as specially featured entertainment at the nightclub. 

Solicitor – Negligence. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the defendant solicitors' firm's appeal and allowed the claimant's cross appeal from an order made after the quantum only trial of a professional negligence claim against the defendant. The judge had made an error of principle in having confined his assessment of loss to the transaction date, rather than the trial date and none of the judge's reasons justified the conclusion that the claimant had not unreasonably failed to mitigate its loss. Nonetheless, the defendant was liable for the full cost which the claimant had incurred in curing a defect in a lease, albeit after trial, in the sum of £157,100. 

European Union – Employment. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that, the general principle prohibiting discrimination on grounds of age, as given concrete expression by Council Directive (EC) 2000/78 should be interpreted as precluding, including in disputes between private persons, national legislation, such as that at issue in the proceedings before the referring court, which deprived an employee of entitlement to a severance allowance where the employee had been entitled to claim an old-age pension from the employer under a pension scheme which the employee had joined before reaching the age of 50, regardless of whether the employee chose to remain on the employment market or take his retirement. 

European Union – Social security. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing an appeal against rejection of a claim for employment and support allowance (ESA) by a European citizen from another member state, held that the labour market-related benefits which an EU citizen from another member state could claim by virtue of EU citizenship was restricted to those whose sole or predominant function was to facilitate access to the labour market. ESA was not, on that test, a labour market-related benefit and a job seeker from another EU member state was not eligible for it. 

European Union – Free movement of capital. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed, in part, an appeal by the Revenue and Customs Commissioners against two judgments regarding the tax treatment of dividends paid to United Kingdom companies on shares in foreign companies. The court upheld the judge's finding that European law required a tax credit for the higher of tax actually paid and the foreign nominal rate of tax of the dividend paying company capped at the UK corporation tax rate. The appeal succeeded regarding the pro rata arrangements for advance corporation tax payments. 

Medical negligence – Childbirth – Causation – Liability. Court of Session: Refusing a reclaiming motion in a medical negligence action by pursuers who sued for damages in respect of hypoxic brain injury their daughter suffered at birth, the court accepted the pursuers' argument that the Lord Ordinary, who assoilzied the defenders, had failed to give adequate reasons for his decision, and that, taken with his excessive delay in producing his opinion, meant that there had not been a fair trial of the issues and his interlocutor should be recalled; however the only course that the pursuers invited the court to take—a remit to the Outer House for proof of new—was incompetent and the court was therefore left with only one option, which was to refuse the reclaiming motion. 

Police – Disclosure of information. The Administrative Court allowed the claimant's application for judicial review of the decision of the defendant Independent Monitor of the Home Office, upholding the disclosure of information in an enhanced criminal record certificate. The defendant had not undertaken the independent review required of him and his analysis could not withstand the application of the Wednesbury test of reasonableness. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division ruled on the re-hearing of cross-applications for child arrangements orders in respect of a six-year-old child, T, whose mother had died. It held that, in all the circumstances, T's interests would be best served by her remaining in the care of the family friends of the mother and a child arrangements order would be made that T lived and made her primary home with them. However, the father and his partner had to play a full part in T's life and childhood and a further child arrangements order would be made which provided for, among other things, contact and visits during the school holidays. 

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £2,600 with total damages of £3000. The claimant suffered severe shock plus severe neck and shoulder pain when his stationary car was struck by another car from the rear. 

Immigration – Illegal entry and other offences. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, upheld the imposition of civil penalties imposed on the appellants under the carriers' liability provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, following the discovery, upon a search in the United Kingdom immigration control centre at Calais, of three Afghan nationals in the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle operated by the first appellant and driven by the second appellant.