Latest Cases

Family proceedings – Costs. The Family Division ordered the father's solicitors to contribute £1,250 or 25% of the assessed costs incurred by the mother regarding a hearing, whichever was the lesser sum. The father's solicitors had failed to act on the present occasion with the competence reasonably to be expected of ordinary members of the profession, and that justified a wasted costs order. 

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. 

Medical treatment – Adult patient. The Queen's Bench Division declared that there had been a procedural breach of art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by the defendant NHS Trust in respect of the placing of a 'do not attempt cardio-pulmonary resuscitation' notice on the deceased's medical record, which subsisted for nine to ten hours, without any consultation with a person who had been caring for or representing his interests. 

Costs – Interim costs. The Queen's Bench Division made an interim costs order for the claimant following the settling of a personal injury action and in so doing took into account an After the Event insurance premium. 

European Union – Public procurement. The Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Elitaliana SpA (Elitaliana) seeking to set aside of the order of the General Court of the European Union, by which the General Court had dismissed its action for: (i) the annulment of measures adopted by the Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (the Mission), established on the basis of Council Joint Action 2008/124/CFSP in the context of the award to another tenderer of the public contract entitled 'EuropeAid/131516/D/SER/XK — Helicopter Support to the Eulex Mission in Kosovo'; and (ii) an order that the Mission should pay compensation for the loss sustained as a result of the failure to award that contract to Elitaliana. 

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. 

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. 

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'. 

Sentence – Imprisonment. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, held that, while a judge had been entitled to depart from the mandatory five year minimum sentence for a firearm offence, a suspended sentence of two years' imprisonment, following the offender's guilty plea to an offence of possession of a prohibited firearm, contrary to s 5(1)(aba) of the Firearms Act 1968, had been unduly lenient. However, the sentence was not altered because the fact that the offender was entitled to credit for time spent on a previous qualifying curfew would make it wrong to interfere. 

Prison – Prisoner. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant's judicial review proceedings, alleging that his continued detention, despite a Parole Board direction for his conditional release, was a result of a breach by the defendants of statutory and other public law duties. The delay was not in breach of the defendants' statutory duties or discriminatory.