Latest Cases

Building Contract – Adjudication. The Technology and Construction Court considered an application by the claimant company to enforce a decision of an adjudicator. The court held that the adjudicator had been validly appointed and that the decision had been made on a valid basis. However, it would not be appropriate for the court to make an order that certain documents sought by the claimant should be disclosed. 

Housing – Homeless person. The appellant, whose entire income comprised state benefits, had unsuccessfully applied for homelessness assistance from the respondent local authority. The review decision upheld the determination and concluded that, given the household income, there should have been sufficient flexibility to meet the shortfall in rent. The county court dismissed her appeal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the appeal and held that benefits income did not have any special status or treatment in the exercise of establishing whether accommodation was affordable, nor was the starting point that benefits were set at subsistence level and were not designed to give a level of flexibility to spend outside maintaining a very basic standard of living on expenditure such as additional housing costs. 

Copyright – Infringement. The Chancery Division considered a claim that eleven distinct bed linen products sold by the first defendant company infringed copyright with respect to eleven original works created by a director and employee of the claimant. The court held that, among other things, the action for copyright infringement would be dismissed, as the products complained of had been imported before the claimant had produced its corresponding designs, and the registered design was invalid. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division heard an application by the wife under s 27 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 for financial provision and decided that despite a pre-nuptial agreement and unsatisfactory evidence from W, H was to provide her with £1,500 per month while the marriage was being untangled and a criminal charge brought by W against H dealt with. 

Human rights – Right to respect for private and family life. The European Court of Human Rights held that, insofar as the applicant complained about the covert surveillance of legal consultations, there had been a violation of art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, there had been no violation insofar as the applicant complained about the covert surveillance of consultations between detainees and their appropriate adults. 

Minor – Removal outside jurisdiction. A father had applied for the return of his children to France after they had been wrongfully removed by the mother and taken to London. The mother applied to strike out the father's application, or for summary dismissal, as there was an order of the French court in favour of the father that the children should live in London with him. The Family Division dismissed her application, but stayed the father's application until the conclusion of the father's proposed proceedings to seek the recognition and enforcement of the French order. 

Negligence – Duty to take care. The claimant was knocked down by a car driven by the defendant. As a result of the collision, the claimant suffered significant injuries, which led him to bring proceedings against the defendant. His claim was dismissed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the claimant's appeal, held that the judge had been entitled to have held that the defendant was not liable to the claimant. 

Medical practitioner – Negligence. The judge held that the claimant had demonstrated that the defendant NHS Trust, by one of its consultant surgeons, had been negligent in his conduct of her total hip replacement and that she had suffered injury as a result. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the defendant's appeal. Among other things, it rejected the grounds of appeal by which it was contended that the judge's decision had been wrong on the evidence and held that there had been no procedural irregularity at all. 

Immigration – Leave to enter. The appellant had succeeded in an out of country appeal against deportation, but was refused entry clearance to re-join his partner and child in the United Kingdom. His appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (FTT) was dismissed, as was his appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT). The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, refused him permission to appeal. The UT had identified an error of law made by the FTT and had not, itself, erred in using the findings of fact made in the deportation appeal as a starting point for drawing its own conclusions on the issue of entry clearance. 

Contempt of court – Committal. The liquidators of a company applied to the Chancery Division to commit the company's directors for contempt of court in failing to comply with a disclosure order. The court imposed fines on two of the four directors whose breach had been by reason of the conduct of others because the funding and structure of the disclosure exercise had been in the hands of the other two directors. The remaining two directors, who had agreed to fund the disclosure exercise, were sentenced to imprisonment on a suspended basis.