Latest Cases

Negligence – Causation. The Queen's Bench Division held that the defendant hospital was liable to the claimant for damages claimed in relation to the injurious consequences of left total hip replacement surgery performed negligently at the defendant's Hospital in 2009. 

Practice – Order. The Chancery Division held that the applicant's excessive and inexcusabe delay in bringing an application to set aside an order made in proceedings in which he had not appeared was fatal to his application. He was not able to overcome the requirements of CPR 39.3(5). 

Charterparty – Arbitration. The Commercial Court, among other things, dismissed the claimant company's application for an anti-suit injunction in shipping proceedings. The claimant's lack of promptness in its application was so serious that the proposed injunction would be neither just nor convenient, and should be refused. 

Employment – Dismissal. The Privy Council allowed the appellant's appeal against an order of the Supreme Court of Mauritius, by which the appellant was ordered to pay to the respondent a sum in the form of wages in lieu of notice and a severance allowance at the normal rate. Taken together, the factors which had informed the degree of blameworthiness of the respondent's misconduct rendered the breach of his duty of non-competition so fundamental that, even when placed in the context of his long unblemished record, it could not reasonably be regarded as other than 'faute grave'. 

Practice – Stay. The Chancery Division dismissed the defendant's application either for the court to stay the action formally, pending the result of the Georgian Court of Appeal's decision, or to informally refrain from giving judgment. It was not appropriate, given the history of the case, that the present court should await whatever decision came out of the Georgian courts, and it would proceed to deliver the judgment as soon as possible. 

Child – Care. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed an appeal by the claimant in respect of her claim against the defendant local authority regarding the physical and sexual abuse she had suffered while in foster care provided by the authority during the period 1985 to 1988. The court held that, in such circumstances, the authority was not vicariously liable for the assaults nor had it been under a non-delegable duty of care to have protected her from harm. 

Criminal law – Appeal by Crown. The Privy Council allowed the prosecution's appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands, quashing the respondent's conviction for possession of an unlicensed firearm. It held that the Court of Appeal's criticisms of the evidence were not justified, as the trial judge had approached the case correctly and there had been no basis for departing from his verdict. 

Contempt of court – Committal. The Queen's Bench Division held that the claimant was not entitled to compensation under art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights despite the decision of the Court of Appeal Civil Division that the trial judge's decision to committ and sentence to prison for contempt of court had been wrong. 

Criminal evidence – Sexual offence. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in allowing the defendant's appeal against his conviction for rape, held that the judge had failed to properly consider admitting evidence that he had had consensual sexual intercourse with the complainant on a previous occasion and text messages from a third party should have been excluded from evidence under the general discretion conferred by s 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. 

Minor – Abduction. The Family Division made a child arrangements order for contact between a father and child in circumstances where the father had withdrawn his application for the child's return to Spain under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction following the mother's attempted suicide caused by her acute anxiety and distress which were directly related to her fears that she and/or the child would be ordered to return to Spain.