Latest Cases

Civil procedure – Interim interdict – Construction of will and codicil. Court of Session: In proceedings in which the pursuers contended that a will and codicil should be read as requiring the defender to ensure that their rights to development profits were guaranteed in all time coming by the imposition of a burden on the title to an estate, and that unless interdicted he would convey the estate to a third party free of arrangements giving effect to the condition which ought to attend the title, the court recalled an interim interdict granted earlier, holding that the pursuers' averments and submissions disclosed at best a weak prima facie case and that the balance of convenience did not favour the grant of interim interdict. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division held that there was no statutory power to direct post-mortem scientific testing to establish biological relationships but that the order that a stored DNA sample of a deceased could be tested alongside a sample of the applicant's would be made in the present case under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. 

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £3,000. The claimant was involved in a collision while driving a taxi. He developed pain, stiffness and discomfort in the neck and lower back the day after the accident. His symptoms were moderate, improving to intermittent four weeks after the accident. 

Shipping – Charterparty. The Commercial Court dismissed the claimant charterer's application for permission to appeal against the decision of an arbitrator regarding the financial consequences of the detention of the vessel that was the subject of an agreement between the parties. The arbitrator had not erred in his interpretation of the contract. Further permission to appeal had been required, and would be refused because the statutory criterion in the Arbitration Act 1996 had not been fulfilled. 

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. 

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. 

Negligence – Cause of action. The Queen's Bench Division struck out the claimants' case for negligence on the basis that it would not be fair just and reasonable for the defendant NHS Trust to impose a duty of care in circumstances where the defendant had just been treating the patient and not his wider family and that where the scope of the alleged duty had effectively been to inform a third party of a diagnosis reached in respect of a patient, there was insufficient proximity between the parties for such a duty to be imposed. 

Costs – Order for costs. The Chancery Division held that the legislative regime which permitted the recovery of an uplift under a conditional fee agreement (CFA) and after the event (ATE) insurance was not incompatible with art 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. With respect to the CFA uplift, the laws of precedent required the House of Lords' decision in Campbell v MGN Ltd (No 2) ([2005] 4 All ER 793) to be followed and ATE premiums were not treated differently. 

Construction contract – Arbitration. The Technology and Construction Court dismissed the claimant company's appeal seeking variation or remission of a partial award made by an arbitrator in proceedings concerning a construction contract incorporating the JCT Conditions SBCSub/C2005 Rev 1 2007. The arbitrator had not erred in law in respect of his application of the burden of proof, his understanding of the principles set out in Walter Lilly & Co Ltd v Mackay[2012] All ER (D) 213 (Jul), and his finding that the defendant was entitled to statutory interest. 

Financial services – Financial Conduct Authority. The Supreme Court, in dismissing the appellants' appeal, held that arrangements made by the first appellant company, which was controlled by the second appellant, to enable members of the public to invest in land, amounted to collective investment schemes within the meaning of s 235 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and, thus, 'regulated activities' for the purpose of s 19 of the Act.