Latest Cases

Land – Acquisition of title by possession. The issue on the appeal was whether an application for a person to be registered, under the Land Registration Act 2002, as the proprietor of a registered estate in land by reason of a period of adverse possession was valid, where part of the relevant period of possession consisted of the occupation of a residential building in circumstances constituting the commission of a criminal offence, under s 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the enactment of s 144 of LASPO, and the commission of an offence under it, did not have any material effect on the operation on the law of adverse possession. 

Legal aid – Entitlement. The claimant issued judicial review proceedings, contending that the defendant Lord Chancellor had exceeded his powers, under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, when making reg 33 of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012, SI 2012/3098. The Divisional Court, in dismissing the application, held that reg 33 of the Regulations was not ultra vires, as the Lord Chancellor had a wide power, which was not limited to procedural matters. Further, reg 33 of the Regulations had not thwarted or frustrated the Act's purpose, but was consistent with it by ensuring that the domestic violence exception had been strictly confined to its intended scope and not exploited. 

Town and country planning – Appeal to Minister against refusal of permission for development. The case involved a challenge to the way the defendant Secretary of State recovered appeals relating to travellers' pitches in the Green Belt. The Planning Court upheld the claimants' challenges based on breaches of ss 19 and 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as the Secretary of State had taken no steps to address unlawful discrimination and had had no regard to the public sector equality duty. Their challenge under art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights succeeded because of the substantial delays that had occurred in the claimants' cases. Accordingly, the Secretary of State's recovery of their cases would be quashed. 

Medical practitioner – Negligence. Judgment had been entered for the claimant against the defendant surgeon for damages for negligence on the part of the defendant in a surgical procedure performed by him upon the claimant's late wife, following which, she had suffered kidney failure. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the defendant's appeal, held, inter alia, that the judge had been entitled to have fastened upon those aspects of the evidence which he had found to have been reliable pointers to what had actually occurred during the procedure, without trawling through every issue, side issue or speculation that arose on the evidence or in argument. 

Company – Shares. The claimants brought proceedings in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) against the second defendant for breach of a contract to procure the issue of shares in the first defendant company to them and against the company for rectification of its share register to show the claimants as shareholders. The BVI court refused the claimants permission to serve the second defendant out of the jurisdiction on the basis that there was no real issue between the claimants on their rectification claim since they were not shareholders in the company. The Court of Appeal allowed the claimants' appeal. The Privy Council, in allowing the defendants' appeal, held that proceedings for rectification could only be brought where a claimant had a right to registration by virtue of a valid transfer of legal title, and not merely a prospective claim against the company dependant on the conversion of an equitable right to a legal title by an order for specific performance of a contract. 

Divorce – Financial provision. In the course of proceedings regarding financial relief applications, the husband sought to strike out the grant of leave given to the wife to make applications for financial remedy orders. The Family Division held that, in the circumstances, it would not be appropriate to set aside the grant of leave or strike out the proceedings. 

Mental health – Court of Protection. CP, who was 91 and suffered from dementia, was taken by the applicant local authority and kept at a locked dementia unit for 17 months. It was agreed that his detention there had violated his rights under arts 5 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court of Protection considered, among other things, a consent order and declarations as to CP's capacity. 

Value added tax – Zero-rating. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) (the tribunal) allowed the taxpayer company's appeal against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)(FTT) in which the FTT had decided that although 'static caravans' sold by the taxpayer were zero-rated, verandas sold by the taxpayer along with those caravans were not zero-rated. The tribunal decided that there was nothing in Group 9 of Sch 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 to exclude a veranda from the scope of zero-rating by reason of being part of a single supply of which the principal supply was a caravan. 

European Union – Intellectual property rights. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that art 4(2) of Directive (EC) 2001/29 (on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society) had to be interpreted as meaning that the rule of exhaustion of the distribution right set out in art 4(2) of that directive did not apply in a situation where a reproduction of a protected work, after having been marketed in the EU with the copyright holder's consent, had undergone an alteration of its medium, such as the transfer of that reproduction from a paper poster onto a canvas, and was placed on the market again in its new form 

European Union – Jurisdiction. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that art 5(3) of Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001 should be interpreted as meaning that, in the event of an allegation of infringement of copyright and rights related to copyright guaranteed by the member state of the court seised, that court had jurisdiction, on the basis of the place where the damage had occurred, to hear an action for damages in respect of an infringement of those rights resulting from the placing of protected photographs online on a website accessible in its territorial jurisdiction. That court had jurisdiction only to rule on the damage caused in the member state within which the court was situated.