Latest Cases

Insurance – Contract of insurance. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, ruled on the true construction of an aggregation clause contained in an insurance policy applicable to all solicitors' indemnity policies, pursuant to the requirement in the Solicitors' Act 1974 for compulsory liability insurance for solicitors and the Minimum Terms and Conditions required to be incorporated into such polices. The true construction of the words 'in a series of matters or transactions' was that the matters or transactions had to have an intrinsic relationship with each other, not an extrinsic relationship with a third factor. 

Industrial training – Levy. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant company's application for judicial review of the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2015, SI 2015/701, in particular, art 7(2) of the Order which, read with art 7(3) and (4) of the Order, set the formula for calculating the amount of levy due in the third of three levy periods. The Order was not ultra vires, unfair or unlawful because it violated classic public law principles. 

Trade mark – Mark. The Chancery Division dismissed Cadbury's appeal against the decision of the hearing officer to refuse a request to delete a trade mark that included the use of a certain shade of purple in the packaging of goods. The hearing officer had not made a material error of principle in not accepting that the mark in issue was a series mark, and Cadbury's proposal was fundamentally flawed. 

Health and safety – Health and safety inspector. The Administrative Court allowed the appellant health and safety inspector's appeal against the decision of the employment tribunal, cancelling a notice prohibiting the respondent from carrying out further roofing works. The tribunal had failed to determine whether it would have issued the notice based on the information that the inspector had known, or ought to have known, when he had issued the notice and to recognise that, subject to reasonable practicality, the respondent had been obliged to provide sufficient work equipment to prevent a fall or minimise the distance and consequences of a fall. 

Housing – Local authority. The Administrative Court allowed the claimants' application for judicial review of the defendant local authority's scheme, reserving 20% of all available lettings for working households and model tenants. The working households element of the scheme amounted to unlawful indirect discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, which required the authority to amend the scheme, but challenges based on discrimination under the European Convention on Human Rights, the public sector equality duty and the welfare of children were also upheld. 

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Medical negligence. PSLA of £10,000 with total damages of £17,500. The claimant suffered pain in her teeth, eventually leading to bone loss in the jaw and bone graft implantation surgery, as a result of the defendant's failure to carry out root canal treatment to treat an infection. 

Insolvency – Bankruptcy. The Chancery Division held that, providing the claimant gave certain undertakings, it would grant permission to appeal and allow an appeal and set aside a bankruptcy order made in respect of the claimant on the petition of a local authority. The petition had been based on council tax liability orders, which the claimant disputed. The court held that the judge ought to have adjourned the bankruptcy petition in order to await the outcome of the claimant's appeal to the Valuation Tribunal in respect of the liability orders. 

Company – Shares. The Chancery Division made findings concerning the ownership of property belonging to the claimant and the first defendant, who had formerly been in a long-term relationship. Among other things, it made findings concerning the ownership of the second and third defendant companies. 

Practice – Family proceedings. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the appellant former wife's appeal in financial remedy proceedings, held that the judge had had power to make the relevant consent order concerning periodical payments, and he ought not to have set it aside. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Henkell & Co. Sektkellerei KG (Henkell) against the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (Trade Marks and Designs), relating to opposition proceedings between Henkell and Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona di Bianchini Società Agricola, regarding the application by the latter for registration of the word sign 'Piccolomini' as a Community trade mark.