Latest Cases

Pleading – Amendment. The Queen's Bench Division refused the claimants' application for permission to amend their particulars of claim in their claim alleging defamation and malicious falsehood for reasons including that the proposed amendments could not stand in their present form, included bare assertions, 'smuggles in' a new allegation which needed to be made good by a direct pleading to the effect, if there was evidence to justify it and served no useful purpose. 

Landlord and tenant – Opposition to grant of new tenancy of business premises. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed a landlord's appeal in respect of a declaration that he had not established his entitlement to rely on s 30(1)(g) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 and an order that a new tenancy of business premises should be granted by the landlord to the tenant. The case was remitted for a re-trial before a different judge. 

Local authority – Residential care home. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the defendant NHS local health boards in Wales' appeal against the decision that their determination of a flat-rate payment to care homes, reflecting the estimated cost of the nursing element of the care required by each resident, but not the social care element, was unlawful. The distinction between nursing and social care services in s 49 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 was effectively unrecognised in the judge's reasoning. 

Practice – Summary judgment. The Chancery Division, in granting the claimants' application for summary judgment, ruled that they were entitled to specific performance of agreements for the assignment to them of patents concerning technology used for eliminating airborne pathogens. The defendants had to do as they had agreed and execute the assignment documentation and there had been no condition precedent in the agreements that the obligation to assign the patents did not arise unless and until royalties had been paid, either in whole or in part. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union allowed the action brought by Kicktipp GmbH (Kicktipp) against the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs), relating to opposition proceedings between Società Italiana Calzature Srl and Kicktipp, regarding the application by the latter for registration of a word sign 'kicktipp' as a Community trade mark. 

Sentence – Mandatory life sentence. The Administrative Court recommended that the offender's tariff for a murder was reduced by one year to seventeen years, less four months spent on remand. His transformation from a racist thug into a sensible, realistic young man satisfied the high threshold for a reduction in the minimum term imposed by a sentencing judge on a young offender. 

Costs – Order for costs. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed an appeal against a costs order following determination of quantum in a negligence claim where liability had been compromised. The judge had erred in having come to a decision that had been outside the bounds of reasonable decision making which was, moreover, in large part based upon an error of principle in having construed the defendant's offer to settle under CPR Pt 36 as having been an offer capable of acceptance by the claimants when, in the circumstances, it had not been. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The Administrative Court dismissed the appellant's appeal against orders for his extradition to Latvia to serve a mandatory custodial sentence of five years for driving without a licence and whilst under the influence of narcotic substances, and two counts of possession of methylampetamine. Mandatory sentences were not, of themselves, disproportionate and the balance struck by the judge with respect to art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had not been wrong. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division dismissed a claimant's appeal against the dismissal of her application for an interim payment, which had been made in the course of proceedings in which she claimed damages against the defendant NHS trust for personal injuries she alleged she had sustained as a result of clinical negligence. On the present state of the evidence and argument, the court could not be satisfied that, if the claim went to trial, the claimant would obtain judgment for a substantial amount of money. 

Creation of trust – Declaration of trust. The Chancery Division allowed the claimants' application to make final an interim charging order over property owned by the first defendant, whose election as the mayor of Tower Hamlets had been declared void. The court held that the Stack approach to the purchase of a domestic property would not apply when property had been brought for letting. Among other things, the proper approach when considering the property was to follow the classic resulting trust doctrine by looking at the actual contributions to the purchase price. On the evidence, the second defendant, who was R's wife, had not made out her case that she had made substantial contributions to the purchase price, and it followed that she could not establish a resulting trust.