Latest Cases

Landlord and tenant – Abatement notice – Specific implement. Sheriff Appeal Court: Refusing an appeal in an action in which the pursuer, the landlord of premises occupied as tenant by the defender, and used by him as a takeaway restaurant, sought, inter alia, declarator that the defender was obliged in terms of the lease to carry out, at his expense, works required by an abatement notice which the local authority had served on the pursuer in respect of statutory nuisance caused by noise from the premises, the court rejected the defender's contention that the sheriff had erred in allowing proof because the pursuer's first two craves did not specify with the required precision what works he must carry out and were therefore irrelevant and/or lacking in specification—there was sufficient specification to allow the matter to proceed to proof; nor had the sheriff erred in dismissing the counterclaim as it was clear that there was no binding agreement reached in an exchange of letters.

Civil procedure – Mental health – Protection of privacy – Anonymisation of parties' names in civil court proceedings. Court of Session: In proceedings by an appellant who was compulsorily detained under mental health legislation, challenging the Sheriff Principal's refusal of her appeal against a determination of the convenor of Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland, in which the appellant enrolled a motion to anonymise her details to initials 'MH' and to design her care of her solicitors in order to protect her privacy, the court held that there would require to be quite exceptional circumstances before the court would permit a litigation to proceed with an instance containing initials or a pseudonym; as matters stood there was insufficient material to justify anonymising the appellant's name in the proceedings, and it therefore refused the application for an anonymity order.

Divorce – Financial provision. On the facts of the case, it would be wholly unfair to hold the husband to the pre-nuptial agreement made under the laws of the State of New York, which he had signed 15 days prior to his marriage to the wife, a wealthy American heiress to the Avon Products business empire. Accordingly, the Family Court held that no weight would be attributed to the agreement. Deciding the husband's financial remedy claim solely by reference to the principle of needs, the court awarded the husband a lump sum of £1,333,500, of which £375,000 would be subject to a charge-back.

Divorce – Foreign divorce. After the husband had obtained a divorce in Oman, the wife applied in England for financial relief of about £56.75m overall, under the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984. The Family Division, having considered the needs of the wife and the parties' children, ordered the husband, who was a wealthy heir of a former prominent politician in Oman, to pay the wife the total sum of £24,075,000 for herself and the children.

Family proceedings – Evidence. In a Family case seeking to identity a perpetrator, in circumstances where children had suffered significant harm as a result of alleged ill-treatment, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, provided some guidance as to the correct approach to the identification of a perpetrator as a result of alleged ill-treatment from a pool of perpetrators. It also allowed the father's appeal due to the lack of proper analysis of the evidence.

Trade mark – Infringement. The claim of the first claimant company (Nomination) succeeded, in an action alleging misrepresentation and trade mark infringement by the defendants (together, JSC). The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court held that, among other things, JSC had infringed Nomination's trade marks by packaging its products in such a way as to damage the reputation of the trade marks, and by causing at least some of JSC's customers to believe that JSC's products had been supplied by Nomination.

Contract – Undue influence. The claimant's application for summary judgment succeeded, in a dispute concerning the transfer to the defendant of a property belonging to the claimant's mother (AG). The claimant alleged that the transfer had been the result of undue influence being placed on AG by the defendant. The Chancery Division held that there was no evidence to displace the presumption of undue influence, because the transaction had been preceded by inadequate and uninformed advice. Further, there was no realistic prospect that the defendant could improve on that.

Arbitration – Arbitrator. The claimant company's application for two declarations in a dispute concerning the operation and maintenance of a biomass energy plant failed. The Technology and Construction Court held that, among other things, the president of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators had not erred in appointing three arbitrators.

Contempt of court – Committal. The first respondent would be sentenced to a custodial sentence of 12 months, suspended for two years, for infringing the injunction granted to protect the identities of the killers of James Bulger by publishing the photographs and the information about Venables' supposed alias and workplace. The Divisional Court further sentenced the second respondent to eight months' custody, suspended for two years, for breaking the injunction by purporting to identify Venables by means of a photograph, an alias, the purported identification of his supposed fiancée, and contravening the prohibition on soliciting information of aliases used by Thompson.

Covenant – Positive covenant. The proceedings, between the lessees of two adjacent pieces of land, arose from a conveyance which had included a covenant to fence. The terms of the covenant were not unusual or sufficient in themselves to convert what had been expressed to be a covenant into some form of easement. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the defendant golf club's appeal against the decision that the relevant covenant in the conveyance had created a fencing easement and not merely a covenant to fence, so that its burden fell on, and was enforceable against, the golf club as the lessees of the servient tenement.