Latest Cases

Employment – Contract. The claimants were each employed by one of seven individual bargaining units for which the defendant was responsible. The defendant decided to unilaterally alter its code of practice in relation to the trigger points for procedures to be taken following absences due to staff sickness. The claimants maintained that the code formed part of their contractual terms and conditions of employment and the defendant was not entitled to make unilateral changes.The Queen's Bench Division upheld the claimants' case and granted a declaration in terms. 

Prison – Release on licence. In circumstances where the claimant sought judicial review of the delay in the determination of her application for release from custody, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that there had been no breach of the obligation under art 5(4) of the European Convention on Human Rights, as a speedy determination could not have been made more quickly than it had been. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant Lee Valley Regional Park Authority challenged the defendant local planning authority's decision to grant the interested party planning permission. The Administrative Court, in allowing the application, accepted the claimant's submissions that the authority had misinterpreted Green Belt policy in the National Planning Policy Framework in an unlawful manner, particularly with reference to the concepts of openness and previously developed land. Further, the development had not been in accord with the development plan. 

Negligence – Causation. Following the trial of a preliminary issue regarding the defendant's liability to the claimant in respect of her treatment for an infection and her subsequent total knee replacement, the Queen's Bench Division held that the defendant was liable in damages for the claimant having to undergo the total knee replacement in 2008 rather than when she would have been about 49 years old, and liable for the post total knee replacement infection and all of its consequences by way of the further infections and operations and the claimant's resulting disability. 

Will – Construction. The Chancery Division held that, on the true construction of a clause in a deceased's will, the ordinary and natural meaning of the words 'issue of mine' and 'such of my issue' respectively, included both the deceased's children and step-children and their children. 

Human rights – Right to respect for family and private life. Further to its previous judgment (see [2014] All ER (D) 156 (Dec)), the Investigatory Powers Tribunal declared that, prior to the disclosure that had been made and referred to in the previous judgment and the present judgment, the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by United Kingdom authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which had been obtained by United States authorities pursuant to US National Security Agency programmes, had contravened arts 8 or 10 of the Convention, but at the present time complied. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. A 10-month old child was admitted to hospital with three fractures to the leg and a tear under the tongue. A local authority brought proceedings for a care order and a placement order in respect of the child. The Family Division conducted a fact-finding hearing and found that, on the facts, the father had caused the child's injuries, but the mother had not. It further found that the parents had separated and that they were unlikely to resume their relationship in the future. 

Employment – Contract of employment. The deceased had been employed with a company in the United Kingdom, which had entitled him to death-in-service benefits, among other things. He had moved to India to work with the parent company's organisation there, but had died after a fatal motor vehicular accident. The claimant, his widow, brought a claim against the defendant underwriter of the parent company's insurance policy, after it rejected a claim for death benefit on the grounds that the deceased had not been ordinarily employed or resident in the UK at the time of his death. The Chancery Division, in dismissing the claim, held that, on the facts, the deceased had not been ordinarily employed or ordinarily resident in the UK at the date of his death. 

Vicarious liability – Employer and employee. An incident at the defendants' bodywork repair shop occurred when a co-employee of the claimant, PW, used a cigarette lighter in the vicinity of the claimant, whose overalls had been sprinkled with a highly inflammable thinning agent. As a result, the overalls caught fire and caused the claimant injury. The judge found that the defendant was not vicariously liable for PW's actions. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the claimant's appeal, held that the real cause of the claimant's injuries had been the conduct of PW, which could not be said to have occurred in the course of his employment. 

Solicitor – Client account. In two claims, the claimants brought proceedings against the defendant solicitors' firm, Mishcon. Mishcon had indirectly received payments from the claimants, which it then passed to third parties on the instructions of one of its claims. The Chancery Division, in dismissing the claimants' claims, held that there had been no Quistclose trust created, nor would the claimants' claims in dishonest assistance or unlawful means conspiracy succeed.