Latest Cases

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. 

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. 

Employment – Discrimination. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (the EAT), allowing the employee's appeal, held that an employment tribunal (the tribunal) had erred on a number of points relating to claims brought by the employee for, among other things, harassment. The tribunal had dismissed the employee's claim for harassment, as the employee did not personally share the protected characteristics referred to. The EAT held that that was not necessary for a claim of harassment to succeed. The EAT further held, in dismissing the employer's cross-appeal, that knowledge of the employee's disability was not a pre-requisite for the employee bringing a claim of disability discrimination. The case was remitted to the tribunal for reconsideration on the harassment point. 

Negligence – Causation. The Queen's Bench Division dismissed the claimant's proceedings against the defendant NHS Trust for injury and loss allegedly caused by the negligence of the defendant's medical and midwifery staff in the management of her mother's labour. On the evidence, the claimant could not establish medical causation. 

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. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant's appeal against the dismissal of its claim for judicial review of the grant of planning permission by the defendant local planning authority for a mixed use development. The court considered the correct approach which the present court should adopt in relation to the exercise of discretion by the judge in a case of the present kind, and held that the criticisms of the judgment itself could not be sustained and did not show that the decision had been 'wrong'. 

Practice – Civil litigation. The Queen's Bench Division gave directions in the claimants' case in which it had been alleged that the defendant's drug was worse than other drugs of a similar nature in relation to symptoms following discontinuation of its use such that the drug was 'defective' within s 3 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. It was not appropriate to bring the process to an end under the court's case management powers at the present stage. 

Family proceedings – Jurisdiction. The Supreme Court in allowing the appellants appeal held, in a case of determining whether the court had jurisdiction based on habitual residence of a child, that the modern concept of a child's habitual residence operated in the expectation that when a child had a new habitual residence, he lost his old one. Only a degree of integration was required in the new state. It was highly unlikely that a child would be left in limbo without a habitual residence. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Queen's Bench Division dismissed the claimant's applications for judicial review of the defendant local planning authority's grant of planning permission for the construction of 12 dwellings and its approval of the discharge of five conditions of that planning permission. There had been no misinterpretation of the relevant policies of the National Planning Policy Framework, members of the defendant's committee had not been misled and there had not been any misdirection or error in the approval of the details under three conditions. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Benelli Q.J. Srl (Benelli) 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 Benelli and Demharter GmbH, regarding the application by the latter company for registration of a figurative mark 'MOTO B' as a Community trade mark.