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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division in a balancing exercise between arts 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights granted the local authority the reporting restriction orders in order to protect the privacy of the child. 

Costs – Order for costs. The Chancery Division, allowed the third to sixth defendants' application under CPR 40.12 seeking clarification or amendment of an order for costs made following the trial of a probate action concerning a will. The amount of the claimant's personal liability for the costs of the third to sixth defendants under the order was not limited by reference to the amount of her pecuniary legacy. The court exercised its inherent power under CPR 40BPD 4.5 that the order be amended to add words to the order to ensure any ambiguity in the order was removed. 

Land – Easement. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, ruled on an appeal against a judgment in respect of a neighbour dispute that involved allegations of obstruction to the claimant's right of way and trespass on his land. The defendant's appeal was allowed in part, with the court making findings regarding the boundary as defined in a land transfer, the roadway over which the claimant had a right of way as defined by the judge in his order and the erection of electric gates across the roadway. 

Heritable property – Landlord and tenant – Right of severance of fixtures which had acceded to heritable estate. Court of Session: In a dispute as to the ownership of a chalet, the heritable proprietor of an estate having granted a lease of a portion of the estate, including the solum on which the chalet was subsequently built, and the defender being the assignee of a right of property in the chalet, it being agreed that the chalet had acceded to the heritable property owned by the pursuer by operation of law, the court held that the defender had a right of severance of the chalet and repelled the pursuer's pleas in law seeking declarator that she was the heritable proprietor of it and interdict against the defender from dismantling or removing it. 

European Union – Jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed a husband's appeal against a judgment that allowed his ex-wife's application for spousal maintenance to proceed in circumstances where the husband asserted that the matter had already been determined by the courts in Slovenia during the divorce proceedings. The court held that, in circumstances where the wife had withdrawn her application for maintenance in Slovenia, there had been no 'decision by a court' or 'court settlement' for the purposes of art 2(1) of Council Regulation (EC) 4/2009 and, therefore, the court in England had jurisdiction to hear her application since she was habitually resident in the jurisdiction. 

Company – Conspiracy. The Chancery Division considered whether there had been an unlawful means conspiracy in circumstances where the director of an insolvent company had conspired to transfer the assets of that company to a company that he controlled. The court held that, in the circumstances, the claimants had failed to establish the loss that they had alleged in the action they had brought for damages. Accordingly the claim failed.