Latest Cases

Practice – Summary judgment. The claimant company provided professional engineering services to the defendant, in respect of the development of a site. The claimant brought a claim for unpaid fees in respect of those services. The defendant counterclaimed, alleging professional negligence. The claimant applied for summary judgment on its claim and to strike out the counterclaim on the basis that it was unparticularised and had no real prospect of success. If further contended that the counterclaim should be struck out where the defendant had failed to comply with an unless order at a pre-trial review to provide a pre-trial review questionnaire. The Technology and Construction Court granted summary judgment on the claimant's claim and struck out the counterclaim. The pre-trial review questionnaire filed by the defendant had not, in substance, complied with the unless order and amounted to substantive non-compliance. 

Immigration – Leave to remain. The proceedings concerned linked appeals regarding the lawfulness of a Home Office guidance document, 'Requests for removal decisions'. The context was that overstayers or illegal entrants whose applications for leave to remain had been refused without a right of appeal could request the respondent Secretary of State to make a removal decision to generate a right of appeal. The guidance informed immigration officers how to respond to such requests. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the guidance was not required to be laid before Parliament under s 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971, because it did not set out criteria which were or might be determinative of an application for leave to enter or remain. Further, the guidance was perfectly clear. 

Warrant – Search warrant. The first defendant granted the second defendant Metropolitan Police Commissioner four warrants, under s 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, concerning the claimants' office and homes. The claimants sought judicial review. The Divisional Court held that it had not been feasible to provide greater specificity and it had been unrealistic to expect the officers to have taken away any relevant material for a computer or other storage device in paper form or on memory sticks. Further, it was permissible to order the seizure of electronic storage devices or their contents in the circumstances without resort to other statutory provisions. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. In claims by many hundreds of Iraqi civilians against the defendant Ministry of Defence for damages for their allegedly unlawful detention and ill-treatment by British armed forces, the preliminary issue was whether in respect of the claims in tort the law of Iraq provided for joint liability and/or vicarious liability of the defendant for acts alleged to have been done by members of the US forces. The Queen's Bench Division gave a ruling based on the evidence submitted. 

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal brought by the appellant trade union against a decision of the Court of Session, Inner House, that the employees in question who were on limited term contracts (LTCs) which had not been renewed had not been dismissed 'as redundant' for the purposes of the consultation requirement under s 188(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992. The Court decided that, contrary to what had been decided by the Inner House, the coming to an end of an LTC was 'for a reason not related to the individual concerned' for the purposes of the definition of redundancy in s 195(1) of the Act. 

Housing – Homeless person. The appellant had applied to the respondent local authority for accommodation. It found that she had become intentionally homeless. That decision was confirmed on review, upheld by the county court judge and affirmed by the Court of Appeal, Civil Division. The Supreme Court allowed the appellant's appeal, finding that the chain of causation between her earlier, deliberate, act and her homelessness had been broken by a supervening event which would have rendered her homeless at the time her case had been considered, whether or not the deliberate act had taken place. 

Unfair dismissal – Reasons justifying dismissal. The employment tribunal (the tribunal) dismissed the employee bus driver's claim for unfair dismissal on the ground that she had repeatedly refused to attend the employer's in-house training centre and that the penalty of dismissal lay within the band of reasonable responses a reasonable employer could have adopted. The Employment Appeal Tribunal allowed the employee's appeal on the basis that the tribunal had erred in failing to make proper findings as to: (i) the reason(s) for the dismissal of the appeal; and (ii) the reason(s) for and reasonableness of the employee's dismissal by reference to that or those reasons. Consequently, the case would be remitted to the tribunal for those matters to be considered. 

Trade mark – Registration. The applicant's application for registration of two trade marks had been rejected under s 3(1)(b) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 as lacking distinctiveness. The Chancery Division dismissed the appeal. The hearing officer had not applied the wrong test, his findings had not been inconsistent with his findings regarding descriptiveness under s 3(1)(b) and he had clearly set out his reasons for having found that the applicant's evidence had not demonstrated the kind of use that would have caused the marks to acquire distinctiveness. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Swatch AG 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 Swatch AG and Panavision Europe Ltd (PEL) concerning the application by PEL for registration of the word mark 'SWATCHBALL' as a Community trade mark. 

Tort – Cause of action. A famous concert pianist, author and television film-maker (J) sought to publish a book about his life, which included details of the abuse he had suffered as a child. His ex-wife sought to prevent the release of the book on the ground that it would cause their young son psychological harm. A High Court judge dismissed an application on behalf of the child for an interim injunction. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the claim alleging that the release of the book would constitute the tort of intentionally causing harm to the son should go for trial (Wilkinson v Downton [1895-9] All ER Rep 267) and it granted an interim injunction restricting its publication in a certain form. The Supreme Court, allowing J's appeal, considered the proper approach to the tort of intentionally causing physical or psychological harm in modern law and held that the publication of the book was not within the scope of the conduct element of the tort of wilful infringement of the right to personal safety. There was no basis for supposing that J had had an actual intention to cause psychiatric harm or severe mental or emotional distress to his son. Taking all factors into account, the only proper conclusion was that there was every justification for the publication.