Latest Cases

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £4,300 with total damages of £5,151 awarded. The claimant suffered whiplash, soft tissue injuries to the neck, shoulder, lower back and left knee, plus travel anxiety and headaches. The medical expert expected a full recovery of all accident-related symptoms by 13–15 months post accident. 

Sentencing – Road traffic offences – 'Tailgating' – Sentence discounting. Sheriff Appeal Court: Refusing an appeal by an appellant who was charged with dangerous driving but at the trial diet offered a plea of guilty to driving without due care and attention which the prosecutor accepted, and was fined £225 and had his licence endorsed with 8 penalty points, the court, having categorised the appellant's driving, (which the sheriff had properly described as 'tailgating') as at the very top end of the careless scale, held that the sentence imposed was lenient, not excessive as the appellant claimed, and that the sheriff had not erred in not discounting the penalty points: arguably, he had given the appellant a generously discounted penalty by declining to disqualify and by restricting the penalty points imposed for reasons which unduly favoured the appellant. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division refused the defendant banks' application to strike out the claimant's second set of proceedings which included defamation claims, on the basis that they were an abuse of process. The court found that although the claimant could have applied at various points to bring earlier publications into the first proceedings, he could not be criticised for not making a claim in respect of any cause of action which had not by then arisen. 

Bankruptcy – Appeal. The Chancery Division dismissed the applicant's appeal against a bankruptcy order. It held that, among other things, in making the order the deputy district judge had been right in finding that the respondent company had acted reasonably in rejecting the applicant's offer to secure the debt. 

Practice – Striking out. The Technology and Construction Court granted a local authority's application to strike out a claim brought by an unsuccessful tenderer, under the Public Contract Regulations 2015, SI 2015/102 (the Regulations), where a contract for council tax and similar debt collection and enforcement services by bailiffs and enforcement agencies amounted to a 'services concession contract' and therefore fell outside the Regulations. The claim was unarguable in law and fact and there were procedural and substantive authorities which made it plain that a CPR Pt 7 claim should not be amended so as to turn it into a claim for judicial review, as requested by the claimant. 

Divorce – Financial provision. The Family Division held in the wife's case for financial remedy that an award of £8.8m was fair having regard to all the relevant factors. In so deciding, it refused to give effect to the wife's submission that she was in fact entitled to an award of £29m. 

Water and watercourses – Flow of water. The Technology and Construction Court dismissed the claimants' claim regarding the collapse of a slope on their property. The court held that the defendant water authority's expert evidence was to be preferred over the claimants'. Further, applying the appropriate test, there had been no material contribution to the presence of fluid. The claimants had failed to establish causation. 

Libel and slander – Pleading. The Queen's Bench Division, in a libel action, allowed the claimant's application to strike out parts of the defence and, bar one exception, refused the defendants' cross-application to amend their defence. 

Elections – Parliamentary. The Queen's Bench Division held that due to an admitted breach by the thee elected candidates of r 6 of the Local Elections (Parishes and Communities) England and Wales Rules 2006, SI 3305/06 the election was void and it would be necessary to rerun it. 

Trade mark – Licence. The Chancery Division granted an order for an expedited trial of a dispute concerning intellectual property rights in industrial machines and parts and an exclusive licence in respect of the assembly and sale of whole machines. However, it held that it was not appropriate to grant the defendant company, which claimed to have the exclusive licence, interim injunctive relief against the claimant where the damage to the claimant if an injunction was granted was far more credible and far more likely to be uncompensatable in money terms than any possible damage to the defendant if an injunction was not granted.