Latest Cases

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division made an order for an interim care order and an order under s 37 of the Children Act 1989 in respect of a seven year-old boy, where there were very real dangers that his emotional safety would be significantly at risk if the court did not remove him from his half-sister's home immediately. 

Employment – Unfair dismissal. The employee was dismissed for gross misconduct for slapping a patient. The employment tribunal (the tribunal) found that the employee had been unfairly dismissed and that there should be no Polkey deduction. The Employment Appeal Tribunal, in allowing the employer's appeal, held that, applying settled law to the facts, the tribunal had erred in law and its decision could not stand. 

Insurance – Marine insurance. The owners of a vessel claimed against the defendant war risks insurers for the constructive total loss of the vessel by reason of her detention for longer than the six month in Venezuela. That detention was consequent upon the discovery of drugs affixed on the hull of the vessel by unknown persons, without the knowledge of the owners. The Commercial Court granted the owners' claim for a constructive total loss on the basis that there was cover under the policy for the malicious acts of the third parties who strapped the drugs to the hull of the vessel and the exclusion for infringement of customs regulations, claimed by the insurers, did not apply to exclude cover in the circumstances of the case. 

Criminal evidence and procedure – Sufficiency of evidence – Misdirection – Unreasonable verdict. High Court of Justiciary: In appeals by three appellants against convictions for fraud involving mortgage loans a bank would not have granted had it known the truth about the borrowers' incomes, and by two of the appellants against convictions for transferring criminal property, the court rejected grounds of appeal based on sufficiency of evidence, misdirection by the sheriff and unreasonableness of the verdicts, however it concluded that it would be appropriate to quash the custodial sentences the sheriff imposed on the second and third appellants and to substitute community service orders. 

Town and Country Planning – Development. By an application, under s 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the claimant sought to quash a decision of the inspector appointed by the first defendant Secretary of State to allow an appeal against the decision of the second defendant local authority, and to grant planning permission to extend a motor repair garage and retrospectively to extend rear parking. The Planning Court, in dismissing the application, held, inter alia, that the inspector's conclusion that the increase in activity at the rear area of the site had not been material had not arguably been outside the range of legitimate conclusions to which she had been entitled to have come. 

Local government – Control of dogs. Sheriff Court: Allowing an appeal against a sheriff's interlocutor ordering the destruction of the appellant's dog and interdicting him from owning a dog for two years following an incident in which the dog bit a child on the face, the court held that the sheriff was entitled to conclude that the dog was dangerously out of control in a public place but he had failed to consider properly a dog control notice as an alternative to destruction and it followed that the appeal should be allowed as to the order disqualifying the appellant from owning a dog. 

European Union – European Parliament. The Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed the appeal by Mr Schonberger (S) which sought to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union in Schonberger v Parliament: Case T-186/11, by which the General Court had dismissed as inadmissible S's action for annulment of the decision of 25 January 2011 whereby the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions had concluded its examination of the petition submitted by S. 

Criminal evidence – Appeal. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in allowing the defendant's appeal against convictions for murder, attempted murder and possession of a firearm, held that new material relating to the treatment of gunshot residue evidence might reasonably have affected the decision of the trial jury so that the convictions were no longer safe. 

Human Rights – Right to fair trial. The applicant complained that the presence of retired and serving police officers on the jury, which had convicted him of murder, violated his right to a fair trial, as provided in art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights, in dismissing the application, held that there was no evidence of actual partiality on the part of either the retired or the serving officer during the trial. Having regard to all the considerations, the safeguards present at the applicant's trial had been sufficient to ensure the impartiality of the jury which had tried the applicant's case. 

Arbitration – Stay of court proceedings. The claimant company appealed against a decision to stay its petition for the winding up of the defendant company. The debt on which the petition was based arose out of a lease which contained an arbitration agreement. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appeal, held that the debt mentioned in the petition fell within the very wide terms of the arbitration clause in the lease and triggered the automatic stay provision in s 9(1) of the Arbitration Act 1996.